The NPD sales records on video games have long had a hole in their figures, with Wal-Mart – one of the biggest sellers of the media – refusing to release its statistics, until now. NPD recently confirmed an agreement with the retailer that will allow them to report on the company’s sales figures for not just video games, but apparel, toys, and home products as well. The new deal includes both brick and mortar sales and those of Wal-Mart.com.
“This agreement is truly a game changer for NPD and for the industry,” said NPD President and Chief Operating Officer Karyn Schoenbart. “With Walmart data, we will be able to provide our clients with world class information and solidify our leadership position as the premier source of market insight in our industries. We look forward to offering our clients the best information ever for understanding their customers in order to drive better decisions and grow their businesses.”
“Our agreement with NPD will provide Walmart with deeper insights into what consumers are buying and what they are looking to buy,” confirmed Cindy Davis, Executive Vice President of Walmart Global Customer Insights. “We are sharing our point-of-sale information so that we’re able to identify opportunities sooner and work with our manufacturer partners to develop more impactful customer-driven programs in the future.”
(via IndustryGamers)
This is a good start to being able to reliably track the sales of games. The problem is only physical merchandise is going to be tracked.
The people at NPD really need to pressure the executives at Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft to release the date for their respective downloadable services. But out of all things that need to be tracked, is the digital PC sales. There are a bunch of different services that need to be tracked to show the true growth of digital sales, especially Steam. Valve really needs to be tracked considering the nature of how many people have accounts on steam and the fact that at peak, there are 5 million people online (though a couple hundred thousand actually playing games).