NPD Reverses Console Numbers Decision

The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the game-playing media seems to have gotten through to the NPD group. Despite earlier statements to the contrary, it looks like for the time being they plan to continue to release console sales figures to the press at large. Next Generation reports: "NPD Group's David Riley admitted in an e-mail Monday, 'Honestly, it was terribly naive of me to think that we could simply stop providing these after giving them freely for a year ... Nothing is going to change. All will remain the same ... The 'Big Three' [Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony] are on board, so we'll be providing these figures indefinitely.'"

Oh thank god

[davidbrit2]

For a minute there, I was afraid the console flame wars would have to rely on blind speculation.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, heaven forbid people actually buy what they consider fun instead of jumping on bandwagons.

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[stormguard2099]

I think your forgetting the population that thinks jumping on bandwagons is fun

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[bdjacobson]

I think your forgetting the population that thinks jumping on bandwagons is fun

Well what else am I supposed to define myself as? I have no personality!

O look A&F has a shirt sale today.

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[Jeff DeMaagd]

For a minute there, I was afraid the console flame wars would have to rely on blind speculation.

Now, it would remain the same myoptic or astigmatic speculation as it was for the last year. I think each platform has its strengths such that I don't thing this bandwagoneering does anyone any good - just get what you want and don't participate in the muckraking.

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[perffectworld]

Flame wars are fun but... I'm a compulsive gambler and it's companies like NPD that make my days a little less black. When sports are just not cutting it, and the firing pool at work just isn't panning out, NPD has consistently been there to rescue the day. My friend Ted, on the other hand, hates NPD. It may have something to do with his old dog Spotty now being my new dog Spotty, after Nintendo came through and kicked Sony in the number-nuts in NPD league, but I'm not sure, he says it's because of consumer

Once again, gaming drives the software industry...

[argent]

NPD has played this game of teasing segments of the software industry with figures before... a few years back it was handhelds, and for a little while you could watch Palm and Microsoft and Sharp and the rest fight it out... but when they pulled the numbers there wasn't a peep.

Gamers, however, they're big business, and a noisy one. They don't go quietly away when you say "no".

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[tomhudson]

Or maybe there was a big to-do for about 3 days ... then nothing ...

And they figured "Holy shit - we'd better pretend this is a big deal and the sheeple are still whining about it, otherwise we'll fade into obscurity!"

I mean really, did anyone care after the first week?

How big is the noisy minority.

[argent]

Every group, genre, industry sector, what have you, has a noisy minority. There were similar complaints when NPD pulled their handheld market share figures, but it didn't have an impact on their decision.

If the noisy minority is big enough to have this effect, that's significant.

Good advertisement.

[Aladrin]

This is great advertisement for them. Since all they DO is market research, giving away some was a good idea... Taking it away and then giving it back was even better. Just brilliant.

4 of 1 comments

[Daimanta]

Woah, NPD also the comment number decisions?

All it takes is one leak

[Alzheimers]

All it takes is one leak from Joe Nobody's blog and all these numbers they're trying to assign a value to will suddenly be open to the public anyway. So instead of building up all this bad karma with their customer base, it makes sense to give the general numbers out and keep the juicy stuff "premium", the boring facts and figures your average Xbox fanboy doesn't care about as long as he can rant about how the PS3 isn't selling as much.

So your armchair economist fanboy blogs get to overhype and exaggerate

Its funny

[Tridus]

From TFA:
"The widespread backlash took NPD games researchers by surprise."

And "Honestly, it was terribly naive of me to think that we could simply stop providing these after giving them freely for a year."

Anybody else find it funny that a market research firm was surprised by reaction to changes in its market?

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[argent]

Not really. They've released teasers and pulled them before, and didn't get the kind of response this decision raised.

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[Gravatron]

NPD numbers had become a weekly thing for gamers, and quite a bit of commentary was put into each weeks numbers. It was neat to see the effects of a major title, marketing push, price cut, etc, in real sales numbers.

Free information

[Lulfas]

The fact they couldn't predict that the general public didn't want to lose access to information is astounding. There is no greater way to make someone want something than to restrict it.

Excuse me

[gumpish]

but what the fuck is an NPD?

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[metroid composite]

National Purchase Diary.

No, seriously.

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[brkello]

Hand in your Slashdot card and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Come on...we can use Google here and we have been looking at NPD numbers for years. :)

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[Thanshin]

It's the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands.

Godwin at it's subtlest.