Europe is much, much more complicated than the Americas - that is why there is no data for software...yet. My guess is the infrastructure for tracking software sales in Central & Eastern Europe just doesn't exist. My deduction has always has been that if Europe/France/Germany/Spain/Scandanavia/Italy/Australia account for x amount of where 'other' hardware shipments went, then it is possible through historical analysis (from reported shipment breakdowns by Nintendo, Sony & Microsoft) and retailer business filings to have the the other data filled in. This is why it is important to pay attention to demand, production, strength of sales of each of the manufacturers in each market.
In essence, if a console, let us call it Wii for example, is known to sell 250k worldwide a week, and 80k goes to Japan, and 100k goes to the Americas, then presumably 70k goes to Europe/Australia/Others. Now, the UK & Ireland have similar retailers to the USA (I don't if they have EB/Gamestop, but I'm sure GAME or whatever it is called is comparable), then I'm sure ioi can conjure up sales figures from sampling as he has in the Americas. I imagine France is the same way, and I think it may even by possible for Germany, Spain, Australia and Scandanavia too. This leaves the rest of Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, and whatever else is covered in Europe - the regions where ioi (and everyone else) has the least coverage. So if the UK/France/Ireland/Australia count for 40k of the 70k other Wii, and another 15k goes to Germany/Central Europe/New Zealand, then the rest is split between the hard to track countries, but because sales are only a few thousand each week, the details are less accurate than in other areas (remember - less coverage - less nuance). So long as the hardware is known to be sold however, educated guesswork will provide a good likely indication of what is happening. I'm not really sure about Europe though, I just think it is largely based on process of elimination for the untracked markets, and statistical sampling from tracked markets.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
