By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Aquamarine on 22 July 2016
Edit Thread
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.