I’m aware that I ordinarily post my impressions about NPD numbers on the same day they release, but this month was different. There was a lot of interesting factors to consider that came into play for all of the players in November, and it was a tense month. Sony was entering the month on the release of a new, lower priced model and the release of their last big first party titles for the year; Microsoft had their last big first party game of the year and was coming 2 months off of the sales boost granted by Halo 3, and was under pressure to do better than what was considered by many analysts to be a mediocre November last year, assisted as it was by Gears of War’s release. Finally, for Nintendo, it was to be a test of their ability to get stock into stores, as they continued to play a dangerous game of supply and demand with their console. There was also the matter of the first new proper Mario game in ages.

So with all this, how did everyone do? Here are the hardware numbers proper, courtesy of 1UP:

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Jayslacks says that he likes my NPD posts, and who I am I to deny him? Here we are, after the would-be megaton last week that we’d never get NPD numbers again EVAR. It’s a good thing too, because this month’s numbers continue to be interesting. These numbers are taken from 1UP and the confirmed sales numbers thread on NeoGAF. Say what you like about NeoGAF, but when it comes to NPD numbers, they have it immediately and accurately, and often with more in depth sales data then other sites provide. Anyway, enough meandering. Let’s get down to business. Here’s a quick warning: the post that follows, is long. Really long.
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We’ll get straight to the source on this one, then add a little analysis after; Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal has stated in his latest Monday Morning Quarterback series that NPD has quietly announced that they will no longer be freely providing hardware sales data to the media, and will henceforth only publicly announce the top 5 software sellers monthly.

Beginning with the October sales data, which is due later this month, NPD is going to cut way back on what they share on a monthly basis with their non-paying customers, i.e. media.

What does this mean?

For starters, no more hardware sales data. (Can you taste the bitter tears streaming from various forums and message boards?) Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will of course be free to release their own sales info—and presumably leak that of their competitors, if it’ll make them look good—but we will no longer receive that data from NPD. Software sales figures will only be given for the Top Five SKUs, not the Top Ten as we normally receive. We’ll eventually receive hardware numbers and Top Ten software numbers, but only on a quarterly and annual basis. There are signs that this may only be a temporary pullback, but for now, this is were things stand.

So, why? Well, the most immediate answer that comes to my mind is money (shocking, I know). NPD is a company, and their business is selling sales and purchasing data to retailers and manufacturers in various industries, including gaming. They’ve become much higher profile over the last year, and perhaps they feel that putting this behind a paywall might encourage certain publishers and media to fork over the $20,000 a month these reports cost to see them. I doubt that many people will, but who am I to judge.

Will it prevent monthly sales data from NPD becoming common knowledge? Probably not. They have too many subscribers with too many subordinates that enjoy leaking information to the media or messageboards to keep this data hidden behind their paywall. It might just take more work to assemble the numbers we’re accustomed to seeing. The worst case scenario is that we see these numbers every three months (as they’ve apparently committed to releasing quarterly data publicly).

My worry is that counter to some thinking, the lack of NPD numbers will actually make general console war fuckwittery worse. VGChartz, the independent site who claims to provide reliable hardware sales data, is largely a joke. Mentioning them on a site like NeoGAF is enough to get you banned, and for good reason. Their numbers are anecdotal conjecture, and often presuppose outrageous circumstances, such as the possibility of over 2 million units of a console sitting on store shelves for a period of 4 months. I’m not linking to them because they’re bullshit. NPD numbers aren’t a hundred percent accurate, but they’re incredibly close, and they’re accepted by developers and publishers as law. This makes it officially Good Enough For Me. Without them, one of the few factual elements of pointless internet discussions the world over will be in increasingly short supply. And with a market where the former leader has re-priced, modified, or discontinued various versions of their hardware, quarterly information doesn’t seem like it would do the job.

-Aegies

P.S. the link to the source on this story leads to a very, very long post; the revelation about NPD numbers is at the bottom of the post, in the PS section.

So it would seem that when I saw fit to make my own predictions about this months NPD numbers earlier in the week, I had the temerity to question Michael Pachter’s prediction that the 360 would beat out the Wii for September, I was full of shit, as the 360 outsold the Wii by 27K units to sell 527,800 consoles for September. For Sony, the news was good and bad for the PSP and PS3 respectively. Official numbers after the jump:

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