August NPD 2021

[Signalstar]

Shadow1980 said:

Signalstar said:

This is just speculation on my part, but I think some game companies pressured NPD to stop making numbers public. Who wants to have to put out a press release every month trying to spin why they are successful even though Console A sold more than Console C? Every month they would have to see dozens of articles comparing sales to competitors.

If that is the case, then it's something unique to the gaming sector. You don't see this with movies or music. For example, while we don't get actual admissions for films (though we can make close estimates based on average ticket prices), we do get daily grosses for every single film released in theaters, regardless of whether it's a success, a bomb, or anything in between. You never see Disney, WB, Universal, etc., try to get box office figures covered up. Meanwhile, the only thing we get from the NPD Group anymore is total industry-wide hardware & software grosses, with vague "This system was #1" comments and a context-free ranking of individual games. The gaming industry has a serious issue with transparency, or rather lack thereof.

Not necessarily true...

As someone who works in the film industry and follows it closely, some distributors choose not to reveal box office numbers for their films.

Case in point is Netflix. They never reveal the gross of their films that they release in theaters, even if they launch in theaters before appearing on Netflix.

Amazon is pretty much the same way too. They rather control the narrative of their film performance. That is why they release only selective and vague data about how much of their audience streams their movies as well. That data is a precious commodity and they see it as more valuable if it is kept private rather than shared publicly or with competitors.

Searchlight Pictures (owned by Disney) didn't reveal the weekend grosses for Nomadland, the film that won best picture.