According to respected gaming journalist N’Gai Croal, the NPD Group will soon no longer release hardware sales numbers to the general media. We’ll still receive sales data for software, but only the top five SKUs will be listed, in contrast to the current top ten.

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.

As N’Gai points out, we can still expect to receive the monthly hardware numbers individually from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft if they so choose to release them.

Monday Morning Quarterback: An Armchair Analysis of Videogame Sales for September 2007 [Level Up]

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