There are plenty of games on these lists that do not have download cards.  Not every game gets a download card release.

This is just pure digital sales.  I do not believe they're accurately taken from Sony/Nintendo (I think they're just estimated based on collected information, much like VGChartz), but they are digital sales.

We need to get Hiska in here to back me up on this.  I'll send him a message on GAF. 

Do you have any evidence to back up that these are just download cards?  Because the final counter point I'll leave is to the fact that they're pure digital is:

Famitsu counts physical + download cards as part of their physical sales every week.  They release digital figures every month.  The format in which the digital figures are released in (check the links next to each month for the various GAF posts) count physical sales, and then have separate digital sales, and then given total sales for the month (i.e. physical + digital).

If Famitsu is counting download cards as physical sales, and you're saying that these digital sales are actually download cards, then this is giving us completely false information, as it's counting download cards twice. 

If the way you're describing it is right, then the total figure (i.e. physical + digital) should be the same as the month's worth of "physical" sales if you added up every week of Famitsu's sales for the period.  But they do not.  That figure matches with the "physical" part of the figure before digital sales are added.

The way I've been told is that you are not getting download card figures during the weekly data. That's standard physical sales. The monthly digital sales are the download cards.

And let's just say they were true digital shop purchases, they have no means of tracking it. Even polling would be way off. VGC polling stores every week is one thing. Famitsu polling readers for the download data would be wildly erratic.

My final nail in the coffin...why don't they track digital only titles?

They do!  Check this month - Minecraft is digital-only.  Rain from October 2013 was also digital-only.

Regarding the accuracy of the data - I don't think anyone is claiming that they're 100% accurate.  But no-one else is offering any kind of digital sales information, so it's the best we've got for the time being.

No, I mean digital games that don't have a download card presence.  Only available digitally.   Minecraft and Rain have download cards.

Indie titles?  Virtual Consoles titles?   See my point?

Two possible reasons:

- Maybe they're only counting "full" price games, or at least games that aren't costing a few hundred Yen on the eShop/PSN.

- The games still need to sell over the lower threshold to appear on the bottom end of the chart.  Which means they have to sell more digitally than all other games on the chart sell digitally + physically.  Might not be a particularly large number, but indie games don't have a particularly large presence in Japan.

In addition: Have Minecraft and Rain had download card releases?  Can't see Rain on amazon.jp or Play-Asia, for example.  I know Rain has had a physical release, and that's counted separately.

Anyway, I've sent Hiska a message so hopefully he'll show up eventually to clarify this, since he's the one buying the issues of Famitsu every month and translating the data so he'll know what it's for.

Bottom of the digital chart is 870 units.  That is incredibly small for even indie games.  To say nothing of Virtual Console type games or other big digital only releases.

Ask him how Famitsu obtains their digital data too.

No, it's not.  You're misunderstanding the data.  Let me explain it as best I can.

Famitsu releases a top 30 every month that includes physical and digital sales.  The chart is ordered by these combined sales, so to enter the chart a game needs whatever the bottom limit is (usually around 15k or so) in either pure physical sales; pure digital sales or a combination of physical and digital sales.

I've chosen to order the charts by digital sales only because that's what this information is about.  I include the extra physical sales too just for completion.  I've always provided the link to the original post next to the month so you can look up the whole chart.

I'd say that plenty of digital-only Virtual Console titles wouldn't even reach close to that figure per month

As a final comparison for what I was saying, let me use the example of sales for the month of October (because it's easiest for me to dig up, since Noctis did all the chart).  The period Famitsu covers for this is:

Week 1; Week 2; Week 3; Week 4.

Famitsu counts download cards as physical sales.  If you add up any of the sales from a game for the weeks they charted in Famitsu during this period, you'll get a total which equals the physical figure from the information I've been providing.  So for example, Pokemon's total is:

2,953,059

Which is the same as the total it posted for 3 of those 4 weeks I linked, which is the tracking figures.

The digital downloads are extra on top of that.  If they were download cards, then we'd be counting those sales twice and there would be absolutely no point in them releasing the information.

Regarding how Famitsu track these numbers: I don't think they've ever explained their methodology.  So you're welcome to completely disregard this information if you wish and ignore this thread from now on.  I happen to quite like that there is some digital information compared to the nothing that we've had before, so quite like posting this every month which is why I'm keeping up this thread.

Ok, I get the monthly thing better now. Thanks. However, those are still incredibly low numbers for digital sales.

As for the separation of the 2 sales criteria for those monthly, it could simply be saying that here is the total and of that total, this portion is download cards. It doesn't have to mean in addition too.

Here is an interesting exercise to try. Add up a months total for 1 game (like Pokemon) from Famitsu and Media Create. Subtract the difference. Then compare that number to the digital sales from Famitsu. I bet they are always pretty damn close. We say the reason Famitsu is always higher than MC is because of the download cards. So why not compare their difference with these digital sales to see how close that disparity is. It the digital sales are truly digital sales, there would be practically no correlation at all.

I did read something from Hiska a moment ago. He said Famitsu uses a website to poll the data from 10,000 users per console. First off, what website? We should be able to go to ourselves and see. Secondly, how do you possibly limit the data to 10,000 polled users per console? How would you possibly know? What prevents double voting? Too many questions.

Regarding your exercise - well, why not do exactly that? 

Media Create Pokemon sales for October: 2,596,123

Famitsu Pokemon sales for October: 2,953,059

Famitsu digital Pokemon sales for October: 33,911

Now, seems to me like a pretty clear-cut case of one tracker including download cards and one tracker not.  A gap of 300k+

Of course, the bigger the game sells the more chance there is for disagreement between them, but still.  Famitsu tracks download cards.  I thought that was well known by now.

You could try it with a load of other games if you're doubting the data to try and prove the point, but I'm quite happy with the belief that Famitsu are tracking download cards while Media Create aren't (I'm sure if you dug around in past Japan sales threads enough you'd probably find a post to that effect).

I do understand why you'd question the information, it's just a little frustrating because since this data begun being released it was always under the knowledge that they were pure digital sales and now you're questioning that, which is okay, but it would take more digging than I'm willing to do to show you the information which says that it is.  I've tried to prove it by providing a counter-point for every question you raise but then you just come up with more questions :P

And regarding their methodology - like I said, I have no idea.  Ask Hiska.  I'm happy enough with what they're providing not to particularly care how they do it for the time being.  I realise it's not a 100% accurate representation.  It's good enough that it's at least an attempt at digital sales for me.

Digital sales have always been far less than the internet will have you believe. For instance, did you know that last year in the US, 49% of all full album sales were physical sales? 

Physical is and will be alive for a long time.