Before anyone gets frisky, this doesn't only apply to VG Chartz - it applies to most sources that log this kind of data for a living. However, seen as game charts are the main purpose of this site, I think it is a valid discussion to have here.
Over the last week or so I have spent most of my console gaming time playing PixelJunk Eden, Warhawk, Bionic Commando Rearmed, and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - all of which are either download only or users have the option to download them as opposed to buying the boxed product.
I'm sure I'm not the only person in this situation. The Wii, 360, and PS3 all have some kind of service for the sale of downloadable games.
However, no data for downloadable games is tracked by this site.
Every now and again someone will post news about dowload figures for Xbox Live titles, but even so these figures aren't added into the main sales charts. Why not?
Now I know that actually getting the sales data for such downloadable games is probably very difficult without going via the hardware manufacturers themselves, but at the same time it's not as if the figures for boxed product games are 100% accurate either - they are just estimates based on data samples from vendors in the supply chain. If you can't get the figures direct from the manufacturers, surely they could be estimated via some other method? For example, most of these games have online ranking, so you should be able to tell the number of players with the game based on the ranking data.
So, the question is, how much longer is it before we start to see data from download games in the charts here?
PSN - hanafuda
