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Forums - Sales Discussion - June 2016 NPD Results

jason1637 said:
Wait so mirrors edge sold over 91k digital since its above uc4 and we know uc4 did 190k with bundles?

The new Top 10 Physical + Digital chart doesn't include bundles. If you look it that way:

Mirror's Edge Physical Standalone Software Revenue + No bundles Revenue + Mirror's Edge Digital Software Revenue >>>>> Uncharted 4 Physical Standalone Software Revenue + No Bundle Revenue + No Digital Software Revenue

 

It's a biased comparison that's nonsensical in measuring actual game performance.

 

 

So now NPD charts are:

1) Revenue, not unit sales (so lower-selling $60 games like Mirror's Edge: Catalyst are skewed to be higher on the charts)

2) Only include digital sales from some publishers, excludes Bethesda, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Sega, etc.

3) Only include Steam + PSN + XBL digital sales, ignore all the other digital markets like Origin and Battle.net

4) No more console software rankings

5) Release a week later

6) Still don't include console bundles

 

In other words, they're completely fucking useless. NPD honestly shouldn't have even bothered. It shows how little they care about the public. My contact at NPD is just letting me share a few numbers as a personal favor. Outside of that....they just simply don't care.



This is a fucking disaster.

I can't believe how much secrecy there is to numbers in this industry. It's pathetic.



                            

Carl2291 said:
This is a fucking disaster.

I can't believe how much secrecy there is to numbers in this industry. It's pathetic.

Honestly it's just because there is such low circulation of NPD numbers.

So few people actually subscribe to them in the world that it's really hard to find people who care enough to leak data.

 

And of course NPD is a monopoly so they don't have any pressure to share anything publicly.



I like ZhugeEX but what happened to boutros?



SWORDF1SH said:
I like ZhugeEX but what happened to boutros?

This time Boutros didn't made the thread because NPD got two reports, one last week and one now.

July and all others will back normal. xD

 

Anyway, thanks Zhuge for the thread!



Shadow1980 said:
Media Create ought to open a U.S. branch to track sales. Won't ever happen, but it's nice to dream.

Did you know that once upon a time there was actually a competitor to NPD for USA video game sales? It was called PC Data.

PC Data forced NPD to actually release sales data weekly and be a lot more competitive for subscribers.

Here's an example:

 

April 1996 Top 20 Entertainment PC Titles (USA Sell-through from PC Data, not NPD):

 

Full Year 1996 Top 20 Entertainment PC Titles (USA Sell-through from PC Data, not NPD):


They also did the console industry as well:

 

USA Hardware Market according to PC Data, not NPD:

 

 

Wanna know why PC Data stopped releasing USA data?

Well...

........NPD bought them in March 2001 so they could have a monopoly on USA sales data.

 

Such a shame.



Ryng_Tolu said:
SWORDF1SH said:
I like ZhugeEX but what happened to boutros?

This time Boutros didn't made the thread because NPD got two reports, one last week and one now.

July and all others will back normal. xD

 

Anyway, thanks Zhuge for the thread!

Boutros isn't pissed about this is he? I think he got caught off guard because we expected them a week later. I feel bad for him though because it's his thing and he does an amazing job. 



Shadow1980 said:
Aquamarine said:

Did you know that once upon a time there was actually a competitor to NPD for USA video game sales? It was called PC Data.

PC Data forced NPD to actually release sales data weekly and be a lot more competitive for subscribers.

Here's an example:

 

Wanna know why PC Data stopped releasing USA data?

Well...

........NPD bought them in March 2001 so they could have a monopoly on USA sales data.

 

Such a shame.

Fascinating. I see they tracked European hardware numbers, too. You don't by any chance have a more complete set of annual hardware unit sales for the U.S. & Europe from them, do you?

And yeah, it is a shame that the NPD has a monopoly on sales tracking in the U.S. They're so damn secretive it's ridiculous. We get box office revenue figures every week and we get album and single sales figures readily available, but getting video game sales figures is an arduous task because of how tight-lipped the NPD is.

We have everything PC Data ever released. And everything NPD ever released. And everything GfK ever released. It's just a matter of going through decades-old, dusty paper archives and digging out everything....which is very time-consuming.

And it's also hard to explain to curious co-workers. "Yeah...the reason I'm not working is....well...some people on an Internet video game forum want some old video game sell-through data..."

We'll see.

Like I said above, the real reason why everything is so tight-lipped is because they're a monopoly and video game sales tracking is SUCH a niche segment that there really isn't any public pressure compelling them to share more info.

 

 

Also, some interesting caveats about NPD's Digital report:

 

These are the only NPD subscribers who have access to NPD digital data:

1) Activision

2) Capcom

3) Deep Silver

4) Electronic Arts

5) Square Enix

6) Ubisoft

7) Take-Two Interactive

8) Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

 

Nobody else----not Nintendo, not game developers, not JP Morgan Chase, NOBODY-----has access to NPD's digital data.

So don't expect any digital leaks....pretty much ever. Eight subscribers is SUCH a small sampling that expecting leakers to show up from one of those eight companies is just ludicrous.

 

 

Also:

NPD digital data ONLY tracks Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Steam digital sales from participating publishers.

1) Origin

2) uPlay

3) Battle.net

4) Wii U eShop

5) Every other digital download service known to man

.....These are all NOT tracked by NPD whatsoever.



SWORDF1SH said:
Ryng_Tolu said:

This time Boutros didn't made the thread because NPD got two reports, one last week and one now.

July and all others will back normal. xD

 

Anyway, thanks Zhuge for the thread!

Boutros isn't pissed about this is he? I think he got caught off guard because we expected them a week later. I feel bad for him though because it's his thing and he does an amazing job. 

I hope not. 

It was not my intention to create the thread instead of him. It's just because I had some data from the Packaged sales report that I wanted to share. If Boutros wants to create a new thread then please go ahead. 

As you can see, I'm terrible at finding time to come here and update the OP etc... Boutros does a much better job. 

 

Speaking of which, I'll update the OP now. 



ZhugeEX said:
SWORDF1SH said:

Boutros isn't pissed about this is he? I think he got caught off guard because we expected them a week later. I feel bad for him though because it's his thing and he does an amazing job. 

I hope not. 

It was not my intention to create the thread instead of him. It's just because I had some data from the Packaged sales report that I wanted to share. If Boutros wants to create a new thread then please go ahead. 

As you can see, I'm terrible at finding time to come here and update the OP etc... Boutros does a much better job. 

 

Speaking of which, I'll update the OP now. 

Since Cosmic basically confirmed it, you may also ad "3DS > 100k" in the OP.