Do we have reason to believe they could get away with it? A single company releasing its own information may be able to, because there is no evidence to refute or deny. But a company that's releasing the information of hundreds of different companies competing against each other? It seems highly unlikely that no one would notice.

I suppose it's possible, however. It just seems extremely unlikely. Unlike most businesses, NPD:

1) Would be under much greater scrutiny when releasing their information, since the information is their business, and not just a byproduct of it

2) NPD would be instantly and completely ruined, instead of just very damaged, which is the fate of most companies caught in such scandals

3) How do you approach the NPD to ask for this favor? What if they refuse? Then your company has been caught trying to bribe the NPD. When you cook your own books, you don't have to trust some other random company to cook them for you. 

Again, not saying it's impossible, just implausable. 

 Yep, that appears to be it. That's definitely the division. 

of course odds are that NPD numbers are going to be more accurate than VGChartz, the higher the sample size, the more accurate the results. But a well selected small sample can be very accurate, and ioi is improving his methods all the time. This is still the only worldwide tracking site in the world, and ioi is making it all free for us. So if you don't like it, go believe someone elses numbers. ioi, you're doing a great job

1 - How would a company know if NPD lied about another companies numbers? Also, why would a company complain if NPD bolsters their numbers? In such a case this would be good for the company so no one will complain. So NPD could for example, give accurate numbers for MS & Sony but bolster Nintendo numbers by 10%. In such case, MS and Sony will have nothing to say and Nintendo will be too happy to care that the numbers are wrong.

2 - But most companies/people are never caught because they are careful about it.

3 - In politics every one knows everyone else because they are all in the same game. Folks at NPD that work on video game sales will undoubtably have connections with folks in the gaming industry. It would make sense for higher ups at gaming companies to get in on the good with these folks so you can bet that they must have arranged for meetings one way or another very much like how big businesses want to get in good with their local politicians or how game companies send free stuff to big review websites to get better reviews and we all know that happens a lot. Also, a lot of people get jobs by referal from someone else. How does one get a job collecting video game data? Maybe they worked for a video game retailer or maybe for a software or production company. What if these people have friends at their old companies? This is how it works usually. No one goes all out and just asks a stranger directly but over a friendly game of golf, or perhaps at an expensive high class party or maybe even in someone elses bed strange deals can be struck. Unlikely maybe, but maybe not given NPD's position to make or break a company or person. Edit: Oh and lets not forget about moles. People from a company who get a job just to do something like this. In my 1 year at Sony here in San Diego we actually fired 4 moles who actually worked for another company and their job was to infiltrate sony and illegally leaking information before games were launched. The world is a very strange place This is not a joke either. Ask some of the producers there and they can tell you their stories.

Because it's possible to find out such manipulations...

Thanks for insulting my intelligence, but I understand why you'd get pissed of with me paraphrasing you. And truth is, she probably deserves it too, because with or without copy-pasting, I still don't see where my argument was covered.

I still don't think any company blindly pays millions to buy data from NPD without checking it. This includes their own data, which is obviously easier to check, and competitors data. They can do what ioi does after all - once in a while check a small sample of retailers and see how their competitors are doing; or they can hire a third company to do that. Heck, they can even check VGChartz for cryin' out loud! And they'll do this, especially if they suspect their numbers, or competitor numbers, aren't right, which they will if they're wildly off.

Our hole point is that, unless NPD is slowly bolstering numbers for like 5-10%, something that may never add up for anything significant, and only for a couple of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of products it tracks - they will get caught, eventually.

I think he left awww ... And I was a little late to respond but ya.

Like for example... saying that the numbers are much lower then 112K.

Oh wait... you did.  So, your either lying about having the numbers, an idiot, or lying about having the numbers and are an idiot.

Either way, two professional tracking agencies with the same amount of the market covered can be far off fomr each other as well... so that's your answer. (Obviously in another area of buisness or world since NPD is the only game in town in the US.)

Gosh, I hardly ever come on this site however when ever I do I'm blown away by the sheer ignorance and seeming craving for closemindedness from a vast majority of memebers on this site. It's like you guys have just closed off the real world and bask in utter ignorance in this wierd time bubble.

If it wasn't erily disturbing it may even be funny. So the TC asked a question of which he gets attacked on and banned. If you know anything about NPD figures you'd know there's a problem publically showing it's data but if you guys trully used NPD you'd see clearly what the TC is talking about and this is also an issue with a hell of a lot of other things too.

THis site is just strange. I can't really put my finger on it but it feels like it, with it's members, are in some weird twilight zone and it's always unnerving anytime I come on this site.