There are more PC games being bought on Digital Distribution than on Retail, right now.

Even if a game isn't reported on financial reports companies like us, the NPD Group, GfK, etc should be able to get the sales information from publishers but we can't.

Also yes BF1943's record sales were announced but how many copies were sold?

I believe the reason for this is B&M retailers, like Scoobes second point states. Employees at Gamestop are not allowed to talk about DD sources including the PSN, XBLA, and WiiWare because they do not get any revenue from sales of titles on any DD service.

This is also why Sony cannot stop UMD game production even though the PSP Go is digital download only. If they canned the PSP-3000 or any future PSPs with UMD drives without providing even vouchers of some form to retail sell no retailer in the world but Sony would sell it.

Almost no publisher releases figures of digital sales because that only undermines their relations with retailers, or because they have too much at stake on retail. The only big publisher I can think of that talks of digital sales is EA, but that might be because EA is the major publisher that is currently pushing the digital and online business more than any other major publisher.

And is false that when Activision talks of figures, they're for worldwide or includes digital sales. When they said that COD4 sold 7 millions, everyone thought that it was a worldwide figure, but infact it was a figure from only about 6 countries, which were tracked by NPD, Charttrack and GFK. They didn't include dozens of countries, nearly all of them PC-centric markets. They didn't include a single country from eastern europe, where Stalker sold 1 million.

That 7 million figure actually helped in knowing how much COD4 it had sold on PC, in those markets. I had estimated that around 2.2 millions from those 7 millions were from the PC version, and that didn't even include dozens of PC-centric markets or digital sales. http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?id=2436222

There's just NO WAY that COD4, which dominated PC Retail charts for months, dominated Digital charts for ages, and is still selling even now, NO WAY that it only sold around Stalker, a game that did not even appear more than a couple of times on retail charts and barely set foot on top digital charts.

COD4 sold ABOVE the level of Sims 2 and World of Warcraft in it's first year, and even now it still has strong legs, especially considering it hasn't even dropped in price.

Call of Duty is easily one of the biggest FPS franchises on PC, on par with Counter-Strike and Half-Life.

Almost no one ever heard of Stalker until it actually came out. If there was hype it was probably only in eastern europe, where the stalker franchise is much more known.

There are more PC games being bought on Digital Distribution than on Retail, right now.

Yep.

I disagree with a lot of your last post- COD 4 sold very well, but it isn't a Half Life/ Sims/ WoW seller by any means, and it won't get anywhere near 10 million sales- but I'd agree totally with the quoted statement, given the figures I posted earlier.

Frankly, I'm utterly amazed that the owner of a site dedicated to video game sales is so completely out of touch with the size of the digital download market.

Almost no publisher releases figures of digital sales because that only undermines their relations with retailers, or because they have too much at stake on retail. The only big publisher I can think of that talks of digital sales is EA, but that might be because EA is the major publisher that is currently pushing the digital and online business more than any other major publisher.

And is false that when Activision talks of figures, they're for worldwide or includes digital sales. When they said that COD4 sold 7 millions, everyone thought that it was a worldwide figure, but infact it was a figure from only about 6 countries, which were tracked by NPD, Charttrack and GFK. They didn't include dozens of countries, nearly all of them PC-centric markets. They didn't include a single country from eastern europe, where Stalker sold 1 million.

That 7 million figure actually helped in knowing how much COD4 it had sold on PC, in those markets. I had estimated that around 2.2 millions from those 7 millions were from the PC version, and that didn't even include dozens of PC-centric markets or digital sales. http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?id=2436222

There's just NO WAY that COD4, which dominated PC Retail charts for months, dominated Digital charts for ages, and is still selling even now, NO WAY that it only sold around Stalker, a game that did not even appear more than a couple of times on retail charts and barely set foot on top digital charts.

COD4 sold ABOVE the level of Sims 2 and World of Warcraft in it's first year, and even now it still has strong legs, especially considering it hasn't even dropped in price.

Call of Duty is easily one of the biggest FPS franchises on PC, on par with Counter-Strike and Half-Life.

Almost no one ever heard of Stalker until it actually came out. If there was hype it was probably only in eastern europe, where the stalker franchise is much more known.

There are more PC games being bought on Digital Distribution than on Retail, right now.

lol, there you go with your 2007 article again :)  You think that, possibly, they may have not had worldwide numbers yet because the game had only been out a month?  LOL, seriously Shio, why don't you looking at some current numbers.  Just because that article (that was written a month after the game came out) only listed those tracking firms numbers does not mean that every subsequent report is like that.  In fact, the farther we get away from the release of the game the more accurate Activisions numbers are. 

lol, or maybe you are out of touch on the size of the digital distribution market.  ioi has a lot more data and experience in this area than we do and I think he would know better than us.  Also, he isn't the only one that thinks that.  NPD came out and said that digital distribution only acounted for about 5% of the gaming industry. 

Now, if you include piracy in digital distribution, than it might be as big as you think, but the people that actually pay for digital downloads are still pretty minor.

Yes but PC retail market is small. Crisis sold only 70k in it's first month in the US according to NPD. What was the number for CoD 4 PC, 100k?

You mean that the first months sales in USA (right before Christmas) accounts for only 1% of CoD4's ww lifetime sales? Quite ridiculous.

lol, or maybe you are out of touch on the size of the digital distribution market.  ioi has a lot more data and experience in this area than we do and I think he would know better than us.  Also, he isn't the only one that thinks that.  NPD came out and said that digital distribution only acounted for about 5% of the gaming industry. 

Now, if you include piracy in digital distribution, than it might be as big as you think, but the people that actually pay for digital downloads are still pretty minor.

Crysis sold 1 million in 45 days, and reached 1.5 millions in less than 6 months. It's probably above 2 millions now, and who knows it might sell over 3 millions lifetime.