With the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 around the corner the NPD is planning to release digital sales figures to coincide with the platform launches. David McQuillan, president of the Games group at NPD, says that the initial focus will be on full-game downloads and downloadable content for consoles, PCs and handhelds. McQuillan also said that the company realises that the market needs the same level of information for the digital categories as exists for the physical business today.
NPD is looking to launch “quickly” because of the new consoles hitting the market this holiday season. “We fully realize that the market needs the same level of information for the digital categories as exists for the physical business today: SKU-level POS. The progress on that effort up until recently has been slow and frustrating at times, but today I am very happy to share that the pace of progress has changed recently. NPD has formed a leader panel to track digital POS sales of full game and add-on content downloads. It is an important and critical step toward that goal. Leader panels are often formed as a precursor to a formal launch of a POS tracking service. We couldn’t agree more with ESA; full market transparency, including digital is incredibly important to the health of the industry.”
'Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock-n-roll.'
-Shigeru Miyamoto
