At the beginning of each month I get an anxious feeling to see the monthly U.S. Hardware/Software units sales that are provided by the NPD Group. Those days and that feeling have come to an end. Today, the NPD Group that this information will no longer be available to non-subscribers. This means that only the people who should be looking at these numbers (investors/publishers/analyst) will continue to receive them, and I’m more than sure they’ll be keeping the data tight-lipped. The NPD Group will still release a top 10 software list ranking the best selling game to the 10th lowest selling but will not provide the unit sales, similar to the UK’s top 40 chart.
I don’t think the fanboy wars will ever end but this is a huge blow to it, or is it? I actually think this is going to open up the door for a bunch of ignorant fanboys to say that a certain game sold more than they really did. All I know is that NPD Thursday’s will no longer be interesting. Guess we’ll never know who wins fall 2010? Or if Kinect sold? Or how many millions Halo: Reach sold?
Any thoughts?
