Firstly, NPD and GfK are professional companies that pay a lot of money to get real-time data, They cater to their customers and not to freeriders. Neither you nor I nor probably anyone else has the right to see these numbers (unless we pay). No longer getting free data is unfortunate but so be it.

The mere idea that vgchartz has a comparable set of real-time data these companies pay for with large sums for is amusing, to put it mildly (I am quite sure that vgchartz gets ZERO data from Japan. No Japanese business would give out its confidential sales data to some random guy in Europe). What vgchartz has is precise historical data, and by watching consumer trends and a few random data points and the hype train and ...etc.., they can guess weekly sales data using mathematical models that take all these factors into consideration. Given a good enough model, the guessed data can even be within /-10% of the actual data most of the time.

Hoewver, such a mathematical model is also extremely dependent on short term precise historical data. At this moment, vgchartz will only have precise(r) data from quarterly reports from the manufacturers and no longer monthly data points from NPD. Every model data must be synched to real data from time to time. This could mean that vgchartz data can slowly creep away from exact data when the intervals get too big (technically we might actually see that in the Japanese data if we compare Mediacreate to vgchartz data).

And with all the typing I actually forgot the point I wanted to make, oh well..

My post was joke btw.

But I would not be surprised that the increasing popularity of VGCHARTZ has affected NPD's decision a little;

drkohler: Points taken although NPD must use sampled and extrapolated data to some extent.  NPD's information would usually be more accurate but they have difficulties and 'blind spots' with certain retailers.  Being paid for it doesn't raise them to the point of infallibility.  They may buy some of their data but from who exactly?  Corporate spies?  POS terminal repairmen?  Hack Ninja's?  Sorry if that sounds rude.  I have an odd sense of humour but I do wonder if truly accurate sales info. exists at all.  As stated, VGC is close enough for an unprofessional like me to see how my fav. co., box, dev or game is doing.