Is VG Chartz credible without downloadable game sales?

[DKII]

Let me paraphrase an email I received from someone at Nintendo on the subject of obtaining sales data directly:

"Unfortunately download data for WiiWare and Virtual Console titles is strictly confidential and generally kept under lock and key at NCL, in fact we at Nintendo UK rarely get to see or analyse it, which can be frustrating!"

So if Nintendo Japan keeps sales for all regions locked up so tight that the UK Nintendo heads can't even get at the data for their own region, how would you expect us to be able to do it except by the indirect methods already described?

Sony/Microsoft situations are no doubt very similar. The developers of these games themselves are contractually prohibited from talking about sales of their own games. When I say "virtually impossible", I mean it.

Right now, by indirect methods, we have good numbers for XBLA, decent numbers for WW/VC, and nothing for PSN. Rest assured that if some way becomes available to get any kind of PSN tracking going, we'll pursue it. But there is absolutely nothing on the subject as it stands currently.

We put a lot of work into what we do have, and saying things like we're not credible for not doing something that's just not possible to do (never mind how you say we're not doing something (tracking WW/VC) which we *are* doing) is just insulting.