don't they just extrapolate from a small sample size anyways.

I'm sure if they get enough data (like typical percentage of sales for certain types of games that are digital) they can devise methods that could get somewhat of a picture. It wouldn't be that accurate.

But they're not that accurate now. Ofcourse, I think they'll just do physical sales and keep the forums going until its death while its making money.

As others have pointed out, VGC will still be completely relevant for hardware sales and since there will still be plenty of people buying physical copies I'm sure some reasonable conclusions can be made based on those. However, the days of throwing out sales numbers on software with confidence in general accuracy will be over. Unless something changes and the ability for third-parties to accurately track software downloads happens you can pretty much forget arguing whether Halo or Gran Turismo sold more copies overall.

I think they could try to estimate digital sales as they receive announcements for various games, like Pay Day 2 selling 80% digital. They will eventually be able to work out a typical % of digital sales for a particular genre, or even franchise. It will add to the inherent inaccuracy of the SW numbers but they are very inaccurate already. So all SW sales should be seen a ballpark figures rather than reliable approximations of reality.

It also makes a mockery of NPD software sales too given they only count disc sales, and I bet the USA is a huge downloading market.

I think digital sales are essential. We would be at the mercy of the publisher/console manufacture for the numbers. Some are rather open about it - as we know Minecraft has sold millions digitally on the Xbox 360 - but on the download link I just looked at it only has just under 100,000 (but that may just be people that rate it.)

I think digital sales will be the ones to watch. You can't run out of a launch game if it's digital. It's easier to fix things, uses less resources to distribute, etc.

I think physical copies will go the way of books, movies, DVD's, Music, CD's and records. There will still be sum sales, but the vast majority will be like a phone app - all digital.

Well Id love digital tracking, about 60% of my purchases are digital, its just easier! when I want a game I don't have to worry about whether my local game store has it in stock or drive up the road to pick it up, so I just download it. I only get physical copies of RPG's.

Thanks a lot for opening this discussion

Retail sales alone can´t give us a clear view of the market right now.
Nintendo consoles have been offering almost all of its games catalog in digital format.
Wind Waker, for example, sold a lot until the disc version reached shops, the game jumped to 1st place in the eshop in just few days. Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Fire Emblem, Luigi´s Mansion are also games that are actually undertracked, they also sold a lot on Eshop

From my colletion of 3DS and WiiU games, I have, respectively, 4 and 2 games in digital format. I bet many other consumers also have downloaded full games.

Interesting example here. I will add the eShop situation to the OP. Now, that's one of our problems: WW was number 1 on eShop, but that info alone doesn't says much. How much it sold digitally? The number 2 on the list could actually be selling more than the number one of six months ago and simply being overshadowed by WW and that basically removes our hability to compare sales.

VGC could also try to refine its necessarily coarse DD estimates with a "pissometer" that measure how much physical stores are pissed off about each title.   Its accuracy could be tweaked using available DD data and extrapolating them.

To an extent, yes.

As mentioned, Wind Waker sold a hellah amount of units on the eShop. Even classic games like Earthbound get "re-born" in terms of sales. I for one downloaded for the measely price of $10.

I can't recall my source but I know a lot of the vita software sales were downloadable titles.

I think PS4/X1 will be a slow burn because of the file size of next games. If the leaked cover of COD Ghosts is to be believed it may be  over 49 gigs in download size, not many people are going to be download that game.

It is just impossible to track digital sales wolrwide.