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NPD Will No Longer Publicly Provide Games Hardware Sales Data

Posted by Zonk on from the end-of-the-fun dept.

Newsweek's LevelUp blog has the big news of the day: the monthly releases of NPD sales information for the games industry have (for the time being) come to an end. N'Gai Croal and Geoff Keighly have a lengthy discussion about the withdrawal of that information from a reliable source. They also discuss the huge number of AAA games releasing this month, and which of those are likely to come out on top. N'Gai also notes that, as far as the NPD was concerned, we should have seen this coming. "NPD Group director David Riley contacted us with a statement to clarify his company's new position, which reads: At this time last year, it was made very clear that NPD will provide media with hardware sales figures, but that it would only be temporary. As you may recall, we never provided these numbers until Nov.'06, the first month when all three new consoles were on the market. It's been a year, so it's time to pull back. It's better to pull back and leave it up to our clients to release their numbers. Or, if manufacturers tell us it's okay to release their hardware sales numbers, then we'll go back to providing them, but that shouldn't be our call."

12 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Perhaps this should read... by PresidentEnder · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hasn't the PS3 had lackluster sales for its entire lifespan? A serious question, rather than a disagreement with parent or an attempt to troll.

    --
    I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
  2. Re:Perhaps this should read... by moderatorrater · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't know about the US, but in Japan their sales are picking up quite quickly. If they were going to suppress the numbers because of low sales, they would have done it a year ago. As it is, it looks more like it was either a legitimately temporary policy that came up for review or else they realize that their sales are going to start surpassing the Wii's within a year or two and they want to be the only ones that know when that happens for sure (and being able to claim it whenever they want to).

  3. Re:Perhaps this should read... by Gothic_Walrus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    His use of "same time" is up for interpretation, though I'd agree with you that it implies a shorter period than the PS3 has been available for.

    I guess we can't entirely discount the theory that Sony was involved in this; if they're worried about the upcoming holiday system, they may well have asked NPD to stop releasing the figures. Unfortunately, we'll probably never have a more definitive answer than the quotes that are in the article...which aren't saying much.

    --
    Goo goo g'joob.
  4. Summary is seriously lacking here. by Gothic_Walrus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The summary neglects to mention two important parts of the (admittedly long) blog post I saw mentioned elsewhere that I think are important.

    First, NPD will still be releasing annual and quarterly hardware figures. Not as nice as monthly, maybe, but the data will still be out there in at least some form, even if it is in a form that's not nearly as useful for analyzing sales throughout the year.

    More importantly, though, NPD is going to cut back on game figures as well - they'll only be releasing a monthly Top Five instead of a Top Ten from now on (though the Top Ten will be quarterly and annually released as well). I don't have a clue why they chose to do this...anyone have any insights on why that decision might have been made? With the amount of software released in a month and the presence of perennial best sellers like Super Smash Brothers in the sales figures, I can't imagine the usefulness of a pared down list.

    --
    Goo goo g'joob.
    1. Re:Summary is seriously lacking here. by sanosuke76 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now that they've gotten folks used to seeing a lot of info from them, they're probably hoping to start coaxing folks into paying for subscriptions in order to see the data.

      Given that NPD info was being watched by an ungodly number of gaming bloggers and such, there's probably more than a few who would pay for continued access at the same level.

      When in doubt, always ask, "Is there a way for them to monetize this?" Because if they can, it's probably why they're doing it.

      --
      My 229 is all the Sig I need http://thegunwiki.com/
    2. Re:Summary is seriously lacking here. by badasscat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      With the amount of software released in a month and the presence of perennial best sellers like Super Smash Brothers in the sales figures, I can't imagine the usefulness of a pared down list.

      Wrong question. The real question is the utility in releasing these lists to the public at all.

      The industry gets a list that includes sales data on every currently produced game. They pay good money for that. That's not going anywhere.

      But what does anybody gain by releasing those numbers to the public? All it does is feed the trolls (some of which work under the title of "editor" for major gaming sites). Game makers hate it because unless you're #1, it just makes you look bad. The NPD feels like they're giving away part of the report they charge for, so they don't like it either. It's debatable whether or not it serves the public, because all we do is argue about what the numbers mean, as if we know anything. It's certainly not information we *need*, in any case.

      So I can't say I have much of a problem with the list being pared down, and I certainly understand the reasoning for it.

    3. Re:Summary is seriously lacking here. by DarthJohn · · Score: 2, Informative

      Before November last year they weren't giving out the numbers. When media folks were asking for the numbers for the new systems they decided to, for a limited time, make more information public for free. They have been selling the data all along, and presumably haven't been giving all of it out. The whole thing was just to answer what they thought would be a short lived higher demand due to the launching of the new gaming systems.

      Apparently they've noticed the whining from the blogs and are surprised at the outrage, but may or may not do anything about it.

      Got some updates from http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3164195

  5. Re:What is NPD? by jimboinsk · · Score: 4, Informative

    The NPD Group, Inc. provides innovative market information products and services to help our clients understand their markets and optimize their businesses. We work with more than 1,400 clients - many of which are the best-known brands in the world.
    http://www.npd.com/corpServlet?nextpage=career-overview_s.html

  6. Re:What is NPD? by trolltalk.com · · Score: 2, Funny

    "As usual, this is slashdot, and you are expected to pull your own weight! Google is simply a URL away ;)"

    Its okay for slashdotters to use Yahoo!, now that congress says they're evil.

    --
    Kevin Smith on Prince
  7. Re:What is NPD? by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 3, Funny
    As usual, this is slashdot, and you are expected to pull your own weight! Google is simply a URL away ;)

    Fixed that for you.

    --
    http://outcampaign.org/
  8. Re:Perhaps this should read... by Chibi+Merrow · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't know about the US, but in Japan their sales are picking up quite quickly.


    They've been under 20k units/week in Japan since August. Are we talking about the same Japan?
    --
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    Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
  9. Re:VGChartz by Shados · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They're good "enough", but the problem is that their numbers are adjusted to NPD... without NPD, they'll be progressively farther until their data is meaningless.