NPD tightens reporting of monthly sales figures

US sales monitor The NPD Group has said that it will no longer report unit sales numbers for game hardware and software in the US.

The group will release a top ten of games by title, not individual SKU as it had done in the past. Recently the NPD reigned in numbers for the top ten, only revealing solid data for the top five games. But as of this Thursday, the group will not reveal unit sales at all.

Instead analyst Anita Frazer will offer some insight into sales of new releases "at both the SKU and title level."

While the company has reflected sales through bricks and mortar stores of boxed product, it has not been able to offer any insight into key markets such as digital sales through services such as steam and the lucrative second hand market, as well as growing mobile, social, rental and other monetisation avenues.

The company did promise to release a quarterly report to the press on total consumer spend, and will continue to support subscribers to its paid data service to release sales figures for their own products.

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