I have been quite perplexed by NPD not publishing monthly data anymore for hardware and software. I have perused this gaming forum and more than a few others to garner some opinions why. I have come across quite a few which I will argue below:

Entire Industry

If the numbers are controlled and released by the publishers, developers and the big 3, then they can time the release of information so that investors do not foresee a failing product coming and pull their dollars just when the entire industry needs them most. It is simple here folks, control is the word of the day. If you control the information on sales, then you have greater leverage with your investors. If there are other avenues of information, then investors can make informed decisions on whether they should invest more money, keep what they have, or pull it out.Put it simply, the entire industry does not want their average investor to procure information that is not handled and sanitized by PR reps for specific companies who depend on that average investor to financially exist.

Publishers and Developers

These two go hand-in-hand because the publishers handle the PR, distribution, marketing and other non-game related business side, while the devs focus on the game.

Lets say your latest Medal of Honor game cost $30 million (hypothetical) to develop, if sales are 1 million or less, then you will have created an unprofitable product. Furthermore, when your latest Medal of Honor game gets panned by reviewers, the ability for you to market and sell the game goes down the drain.

For example, on October 12, 2010, Pachter said, ""[EA] shares [are] down because apparently some investors are disappointed by these early reviews."

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6281734.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;14

Coincidentally, NPD released the news cutting off monthly hardware and software sales the same day.

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6281714.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;15

Coincidence? Most likely, but it raises suspicions when EA's biggest 2010 holiday release gets universally panned by all reputable gaming media. Let the conspiracy theories begin.

NPD's Business Model

Subscriptions are not a necessity. They are a luxury like chocolate or a yacht one will purchase after they have paid off the necesssities of everyday life. In a recession it is common for consumers to cut back on non-essential goods and services, subscriptions to NPD included.

Likewise, NPD like every other business is not immune to the effects of a recession. Henceforth, in a recession they lose subscribers and have to cut back on "free" services placing them as "subscriber only" to allay their losses.

It could be that NPD in this recession is hurting, hurting badly and needs to plug the flow of "free" in order to get their finances straight.

The Big 3 - Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony

Lets be honest, towards the end of a generation it becomes harder and harder to sell consoles. The Wii has been off of it's peak hardware sales for a couple of years now.The PS3 is having a slightly down year from 2009, the Move is selling at the disappointing rate of 100k/week, and Microsoft has the whole house including Grandma's nursing home invested in Kinect.

Why would it be advantageous to the big 3 for NPD to stop releasing monthly hardware and software numbers? First, as David Riley, executive director of NPD, said in his press release, "Clients can release their figures, which we can verify, but it shouldn’t be up to NPD to release these figures." Yes, these figures are released and can be found via the SEC financial statements months if not years after the fact. Thusforth, when the holidays are coming up and new hardware is on the horizon (Move, Kinect, and 3DS), would you really want, month-after-month, information regarding the phenomenal, revolutionary product or on the other hand, catastrophic investor money sink created by a narcissistic weirdo who thinks he is the Steven Spielberg of videogames to be available to potential customers?

Of course not, you want to send the data over to you PR department full of sorority girls who will dress up the data in such a way that even if you sold 10k units, they can make it sound as if you sold 10 million! We can get numbers and categorize them into information the way our boss wants to see them, I am getting a promotion! After all, the customer is stupid, they can't possibly think to share ideas and learn from each other in online communities, therefore they will gladly eat the shit we slop onto their plate!

Conclusions

In this day and age it is absolutely pathetic that the video game industry which is approximating the scope of the movie industry does not have solid, free independent weekly and monthly sales numbers. If you want to check the top 20 movies, then that information is available via box office sales online, in magazines and newspapers. Books have best sellers list, the most prominent being the New York Times Bestsellers List. Television has ratings, specifcally Nielsens. Finally, music has the Billboard charts.

So why is video game data not free and available to the mass public? What else is there to hide besides viego companies who regularly churn out mediocre to bad games thus deserving to fail? How is hiding numbers competitive as opposed to protective?

I myself blame the entire industry from EA, Activision Blizzard, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and all other major players for colluding and putting the gun to NPD's head to stop the numbers.

Who do you blame?

ioi

Should be in included in the poll.

Care to elaborate?

The way I see it and the way it is being spoken on sites like NeoGAF, NPD not releasing monthly data boosts the credibility of VGChartz, thus ioi himself. Personally, this is the best of all worlds for VGChartz, because VGChartz will be the only free, independent online numbers source now. I don't trust internal sales data because it goes through the sanitizing PR process where they dress up the data to make it look favorable to investors.

Is this why ioi should be included in the poll?

ioi is the reason indeed - I'm amazed they continued to hold on for as long as they did, offering only monthly american sales, as compared to VGChartz's weekly, worldwide sales, as well as the vast amount of additional features and better interface that VGChartz offers.

Do people with subscriptions get the numbers? If so, will Vgchartz subscribe? Are we gonna get quarterly numbers?

For many of those looking at the numbers, features and a better interface have little meaning. One of the criticisms of VGChartz and why any mention of VGChartz will get you banned on NeoGAF, is that a couple NeoGAF members got their hands on some VGChartz excel files before the NPD numbers were published, finding that the numbers ioi was using was inflated well above 10% what the official NPD numbers were when they came out and before VGChartz massaged their numbers to get in line with NPD's numbers.

With NPD gone now as a free source and everything on subscription, the necessity to provide the source of VGChartz's numbers will be all the more important. Without NPD as a comparison, you have no comparison besides the industry numbers, which many of us know will be inflated.

As it began is where it stands now, it is about the numbers and where you get them, not just how you categorize them as information for the mass public to read and comment on.

Sorry, but none of what you said is true.

VGChartz already does provide an explanation of how they get their numbers. http://www.vgchartz.com/methodology.php

As for your story about excel spreadsheets, ioi and his staff have never tried to keep VGChartz adjustments quiet, they are usually detailed in the forums, and ioi has, many many times stated that he believes it is better to adjust numbers when more data comes in, and that it is not a sign of weakness. The reason VGChartz is hated on neogaf is a much more interesting and better story, basically in short, ioi offered to put his sales numbers up on gaf, and they told him to bugger off, so he made his own website and that pissed off the guys who run gaf.

Also, if you have any evidence of game manufacturers inflating shipment figures, you should report them to the authorities in the country they operate, because this is extremely illegal.

I didn't click a box yet but perhaps NPD's bus. model is the underlying reason.  They undoubtedly invest a large amount of time and money coming up with their somewhat limited but arguably more accurate view of industry trends.  I know little about their business model and might never have heard of them it I hadn't found this site.  As an unprofessional I am perfectly comfortable with VGC's best effort at an overall view and as long as the pros here have NPD's nos. to double check their Americas figures I really don't see any problem. They are only one of many sources of verification anyway.

It would be troubling to allow marketing experts and the spin doctors in public relations to dominate the mass media portrayal of the industry.  Real journalists will dismiss deliberately doctored numbers and inflated claims in search of an unbiased viewpoint.  Or so I hope.  Perhaps we are witnessing another important moment in VGChartz history as more and more sites and publications begin quoting Brett's figures and asking for his opinion and expertise.  I always wondered how accurate NPD is anyway.  They may end up doing another backtrack if their revenue stream does not improve or the lack of monthly publicity has adverse effects. 

Wii Fit.

Maybe Sony.