Mummelmann said: Europe is a difficult region to track. I've been trying to find a Scandinavian tracker of some kind for a couple of years but the closest I've come (that offer anything for free) simply track revenues and not units in hardware and software.

Revenue huh?  I bet that makes gaming look way more popular then it really is.  You guys are the ones with the $100 + games right?

Kasz216 said: Mummelmann said: Europe is a difficult region to track. I've been trying to find a Scandinavian tracker of some kind for a couple of years but the closest I've come (that offer anything for free) simply track revenues and not units in hardware and software. Revenue huh?  I bet that makes gaming look way more popular then it really is.  You guys are the ones with the $100 + games right?

Uhh, no. More expensive than US, yeah, but I have yet to see a $100+ game. I think that might be Australia, not entirely sure though.

Majin-Tenshinhan said: Kasz216 said: Mummelmann said: Europe is a difficult region to track. I've been trying to find a Scandinavian tracker of some kind for a couple of years but the closest I've come (that offer anything for free) simply track revenues and not units in hardware and software. Revenue huh?  I bet that makes gaming look way more popular then it really is.  You guys are the ones with the $100 + games right? Uhh, no. More expensive than US, yeah, but I have yet to see a $100+ game. I think that might be Australia, not entirely sure though.

Hm.  I thought some country in scandanavia had some crazy entertainment tax.

Kasz216 said: Mummelmann said: Europe is a difficult region to track. I've been trying to find a Scandinavian tracker of some kind for a couple of years but the closest I've come (that offer anything for free) simply track revenues and not units in hardware and software. Revenue huh?  I bet that makes gaming look way more popular then it really is.  You guys are the ones with the $100 + games right?

Well technically, in countries with Euros, PS360 games start at 60-70€, which is like 85-100$. I said some because I'm not sure, but they retail at 70€ over here.

Fortunately, I buy games from UK. Their RRP is lower and euro/pound is almost 1/1

Kasz216 said: Majin-Tenshinhan said: Kasz216 said: Mummelmann said: Europe is a difficult region to track. I've been trying to find a Scandinavian tracker of some kind for a couple of years but the closest I've come (that offer anything for free) simply track revenues and not units in hardware and software. Revenue huh?  I bet that makes gaming look way more popular then it really is.  You guys are the ones with the $100 + games right? Uhh, no. More expensive than US, yeah, but I have yet to see a $100+ game. I think that might be Australia, not entirely sure though. Hm.  I thought some country in scandanavia had some crazy entertainment tax.

I don't think so. Granted, I only know about Sweden since that's where I live, but if a neighboring country had something like that I think I'd have heard about it. Though, as I said, I'm not entirely sure.

If any country has something like that I'd assume it'd be Norway. Stuff tends to be pretty expensive over there in general.

Games are easily 100$ here, or 599 NOK, that's the standard entry price for any PS360Wii title in Norway. PC games are a lot cheaper, generally running around the 400 NOK mark.

Kasz: The biggest issue with the domestic revenue tracking from Spillforeningen is that it doesn't account for anything other than standard retail price and overall shipping cost. Some stores sell them for less, online stores are always cheaper on the product itself (but it rarely pays off buying online when games are new since the freight will actually net you another 10$ at least), there are sales, bundles and other factors (discount cards, bulk retailer shipments etc) so the whole system is utter bullshit. They do the same for hardware and the prices vary a great deal around here, a Wii for instance will cost anything from 1800 to 2200 NOK so simply going by retail revenue doesn't work in the big picture at all. Bundles are possibly the worst, if you sell 5000 Halo 3 360 bundles here for standard retail price, it will appear that you haven't moved 5000 copies of Halo 3 since the price alone doesn't indicate it and you may well end up having sold zero copies of the game itself on paper.
The main reason they track things this way here is because of the competition laws, they state that any and all vendors of any wares/goods or service have a right to keep the exact figures for items moved to themselves and as such it is mostly illegal to publish the numbers without full consent from the vendor in question so the revenue tracking is sort of a work around in essence.

Majin: The amount of bullshit taxes and fees over here is staggering, our cars are twice as costly as those in Sweden and the same goes for most groceries. Electronics are more expensive as well. A true testament to the backwards nature of out potato nation is that when shipping multiple things (invitations to a wedding, christmas presents etc) it is both quicker and cheaper to cross the border and ship it from Sweden and into Norway via the Swedish mail service...

PS: I'm trying my darnedest to get a hold of some reliable figures but its a challenge for this region, I'd love to be able to help ioi make the numbers even more accurate and it saddens me that the intricacy and overall silly nature of business laws may well prevent the correct information from reaching us (and many others who may have an interest in them).

Yea pretty much before mid-2008 we are missing a lot of data for Europe/Other software... a lot in the PSP too. I'm assuming it is a large work in progress for ioi but yea.

We are, but what happens often with older games is that a total number with be put in place for the area, with Weeks 1 - 10 saying N/A.

For example, Sonic Rivals (http://www.vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=2110&region=All) has 380k others sales, but it doesn't have weekly breakdown, meaning it never entered the weekly charts at any point, and doesn't affect the tie ratio.

So lots of PSP games don't have current tracking and don't make the charts, but still have some data.

And indeed it is either incredibly difficult, if not impossible to fill in those blanks without a time machine.

Was not the early Others data for software incomplete? Since the PSP and Xbox 360 launched before the site got their Others data in order the former and latter have incomplete software sales there, more the former than the latter. Also the DS would probably fit in this grouping as well, though some sales numbers are given out by Nintendo which makes things easier.