So wait... nobody has the info now?

While the structure of the generation itself will have had something to do with it (it's more interesting to debate and predict how things might be when there is less to go on) The graphing features being taken out made it much too difficult to talk about sales when numbers have to be updated so much. I don't have a problem with updating the sales figures often as it should make them more accurate, but without site tools to quickly check things making a properly detailed sales thread involves tedious Excel work copying weekly data just to make simple comparisons.

The sales threads started dying when the graphs were taken out (if I remember correctly, at the time we were promised new improved graphs within a few weeks, it was months later we got some graphs on game pages that had some nice new features, but still lacked the usefulness of the old ones)

The forum started dying with VGC 3.0 (or whatever version introduced this gamrconnect stuff)... I will admit that functionality has improved again for the current set-up (lets call it VGC 3.5) but the chartz side of things is still almost at it's worst since 2006 (the only improvements over the worst being the addition of UK/FR/GE game charts and the game database that has sales info) and the forum is still missing some key features.

EDIT: ok most of what I have said has already been said.

I sent an inquiry ages ago. Still nothing. VGC Pro is a scam.

Yeah, this just makes it even odder. Changing the charts and tools from free to paid makes sense, but just removing the tools alltogether doesn't really make any sense at all. They obviously have a reason for removing everything that has been removed, but I'm really struggling to see it now.

it can't really be a scam if they don't take your money, just more like mind boggling.

"Due to release in december 2011". Also, a mod has told me VGC Pro is in full function. It is not. Sounds like lies to me. But you're right, at least nobody lost any money (as far as we know ).

There's a sales forum?

I think Carl pretty much got it spot on.

I don't use the site much anymore and I know others who used to don't either. Why?

There is no sales data!! At least not in the old traditional sense. If I want to go see how much a console has sold between two set dates I can't. If I want to see how a game has sold between two set dates I can't. Now maybe I am looking in the wrong section and that stuff is still there but I can't find them. And if they are not there then whats the point of me being here? If I can't see sales then there is no reason to be on a sales website. Thats like going to burger king and them having no burgers! No offence but the site sold out. And the cost of that is losing your audience.

In late 2007 and 2008, we could view top 200 game charts for Americas, Japan and Others regions (and combined global) but they could also be sorted by publisher and/or platform to view a top 50, so if you chose publisher:Nintendo and platform: Wii you would be able to view all the tracked games Nintendo published on the Wii. There were also monthly charts at some points that were the same as the weekly ones in functionality, and a yearly top 200 for each region (can't recall if that could ever be sorted)
There was also an 'Others' region hardware breakdown each week, which gave hardware sales for all the regions incorporated into 'Other'... those being UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Scandanavia, Other Europe, Australia and Other (the final other was usually referred to as 'Other Other' by the forum, and was an estimate of sales in places like South Africa, Korea, China India etc)

More importantly than that though we were able to make graphs comparing hardware sales... the graphs could be created for up to 3 platforms in any of the regions I mentioned above, and for any time period from just 2 weeks to about 8 years (I think 400 weeks was the max, which is a little short of 8 years) so for example PS3 in Germany could be compared with Wii in Spain and PSP in Japan, all on the same graph. The platforms you could choose also included PS2/GC/XB too, and for Japan extended further back to about 1990.
In addition there were the 'sales from launch' graphs which could be created in the same way as above, with the same kind of options except the time period is not fixed to the calendar, but to the console launch... for example comparing Wii to GC sales in 2008 was possible with the above graphs, but kind of pointless as the GC was dead so it would show no sales line... but the sales from launch graphs would align the launches of the GC and Wii as if they launched on the same date.
Later on (may have been during VGC 2.0) there was also a graph tool for comparing game sales, so for example it was possible to compare Call of Duty: Modern Warfare [X360] with CoD:MW [PS3] as well as New Super Mario Bros Wii on the same graph.

If you were only lurking for a month before you joined then you haven't seen any of the good stuff in terms of sales features... in fact just before the charts stopped updating for a couple of weeks in November was probably the worst time of all for sales info on VGC (well obviously not getting any in late November for a couple of weeks was the worst, but that was due to the restructuring, wheras early November was an intentional bleak point) In fact if you started visiting in mid October then the website has only got better since then, as we now have a USA chart (before it was always the whole Americas) and UK/GE/FR charts (we used to have just hardware for those regions, and game sales were combined into 'others')

TWRoO's post really brings it back.

VGChartz really screwed up. To make your website better/ more popular, you don't take so many great, unique features away.

Sure having UK, German, French charts is nice... But in comparison to what we had, its rubbish.