NPD to limit sales data released to non-paying customers

According to Newsweek‘s N’Gai Croal, the New York-based NPD Group will limit the data it releases to its non-paying customers starting with the October hardware sales data, which is due for release later this month. Hardware sales data will no longer be available every month, and the Top Ten SKUs charts will be cut in half. Hardware sales data as well as the Top Ten software titles will instead be released on a quarterly and yearly basis. Find out more at the full article.

On the latest edition of his Monday Morning Quarterback feature, Newsweek‘s N’Gai Croal revealed that the New York-based NPD Group will no longer release monthly hardware sales data to their non-paying customers, i.e. the media.

Croal also revealed that software sales figures for only the top five SKUs will be released instead of the usual top ten. This practice will start with the sales data for October, which is due to come out later this month. The last data released by NPD was for sales in September.

Armchair analysts won’t be left without any figures at all, though. Hardware and software sales data will still be released on a quarterly and annual basis, so this pullback may only be temporary. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are still free to release their own hardware sales data, of course.

Via Level Up