Honestly, I find combining US, UK and Japan figures and leaving out so many other markets is actually less useful than just listing those three markets seperately.

Largest gaming markets tracked in expanded NPD coverage

By Ben Kuchera | Published: August 21, 2008 - 12:30PM CT

This is some exciting news. The NPD Group has partnered with GfK Chart-Track Limited and Enterbrain, Inc., to release what they're calling the Top Global Markets Report, "the first report to integrate point-of-sale (POS) data for video game software sales in the world's largest games markets."

The NPD numbers are a popular read for hardcore gamers—even if they sometimes cause more argument than discussion—and more data for more markets will be a positive thing for consumers who want a more well-rounded picture of the global sales of the games they enjoy. The report tracks sales in the US, the UK, and Japan, the top three global markets for games. As of this writing, the only data being made public is the top five best-selling games in those markets, from January to July 2008.

It's important to remember that data like this is offered on a for-pay basis to clients whose business could benefit from the knowledge, and the NPD releases the monthly numbers as a courtesy. Still, we hope that these expanded numbers are also made available. David Riley of the NPD Group is taking a wait and see attitude. "Will we begin releasing a combined sales chart of the top sellers within these markets on a regular basis? Who knows," he told Ars. "I believe that will be based on demand, client acceptance and several other factors, but for now we simply wanted to provide a sample of what the tracking product can deliver."

Riley also notes that they're tracking sales in Canada, but testing the waters with the three largest markets is the best way to gauge reactions to the data. We look forward to seeing as much data as the three groups are willing to release.

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Seems that for the time being they won't be regularly releasing data to the public, but may do in the future. However, whilst NPD say that, I think there's a decent chance we may get to see the monthly chart published in Famitsu.

It also seems that they are just starting off with the three largest countries and may add more in the future.

We get JP & US data anyway, and with ELSPA Sales Awards we have a pretty good idea of UK sales too, so we're not really missing much. However, if they add more countries, and we start seeing a monthly global top ten or something, then this could be a very interesting development.

The UK sales in the Top 5 chart must be extrapolated to 100% from the ~90% coverage Chart-Track have. Wii Fit hadn't passed 600k by July's ELSPA Sales Awards, and neither had Mario Kart Wii. Chart-Track must be giving a more complex extrapolation as MK Wii woulld have passed 600k in the Sales Awards already if they were just using the simple 90% - 100% extrapolation they usually give out to the press. I guess Nintendo games get a bigger extrapolation as Chart-Track don't cover TRU, which should be more biased towards Nintendo sales.

An extra snippet of market data from the new report:

The GTA figures on the site are fine. Check the opening post: the figures are UK + US only for GTA.

Take Two announced it had shipped 11m GTAs in early June, and at the same time announced 8.5m in worldwide sales.

Odds are those figures include mainland Europe and other places...since you know companies have to know where their games sell.

The NPD+Chart Track figure is USA+UK only. Believe it or not, the game actually did do pretty well in mainland Europe, Australia, Canada, etc. Come on.

You guys have to learn to read carefully!

Yeah, GTA IV did well most places, top selling game in France of 2008 through May (525,000), had sold 420k in Canada through May, was the top selling game in Germany of 2008 through June, Top selling game in Italy of 2008 through June (250k+), and had sold 130k on PS3 alone in Spain through May. Throw in Benelux, Australia, Scandinavia, all the other minor countries, update them all through July and there probably isn't too much difference.

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Lol