July 2017 NPD Thread! Switch #1

[librarian13579]

Nuvendil said:

librarian13579 said:

You can take the "estimate" part with a grain of salt. It's pretty much just straight sales data.

This is how it works:

1) Every month, NPD gets direct, point-of-sale transaction data from all of the major retailers and all of their online websites. That's 95% of the market.

2) Then, NPD gets direct data from another 2% of smaller retailers.

3) The remaining 3% NPD estimates with algorithms.

We as consumers collectively generate 97% of NPD's data, so I do feel like it's something we should have access to.

A long long time ago, we used to get some direct data....before some of the retailers / third-parties started complaining, that is.

True enough.

But might I ask, why should this information be available?  On what are you basing this perceived right?  Because we bought the products?  The purchase is an exchange of money for a product or service.  It only gives the right to use or own that product or service.  In what way are consumers harmed in any capacity by sales data of this nature not being public?  I mean, publicly traded companies have to divulge their sales anyway quarterly.  Beyond our own ammusement or hobby of tracking sales, what does this information give us? 

They really don't. Legally, all they have to establish is materiality by sector.

In other words, corporations only need to divulge revenue from the major divisional segments. They don't need to delineate any further than that. It's fine for shareholders, but it can often obfuscate the performance of products (e.g. Microsoft using MAUs instead of unit shipments for Xbox performance).

I just think that, because DVD/Blu-Ray sales (in some areas), album sales, Japanese video game sales, and box office movie sales are commonly divulged, so too should western video games. It's a matter of principle more than anything.

Kadokawa isn't losing any business because they share the Top 30 + hardware sales every week. NPD wouldn't lose any clients if they went that route, either. They're just bowing to the whims of petty corporations.