Where can I find video game economic stats?

[Avatard]

I'm looking for an unbiased place to look up video game sales by number and $$$ amount. Including consoles and games. Past and present. I'd kinda like to compair opening day DS to GBA. And see which games common to all 3 major consoles sell best on which console. That kinda thing. Anyone know?

[zmweasel]

I'm looking for an unbiased place to look up video game sales by number and $$$ amount. Including consoles and games. Past and present. I'd kinda like to compair opening day DS to GBA. And see which games common to all 3 major consoles sell best on which console. That kinda thing. Anyone know?

You gotta subscribe to NPD for that kind of info, which is very pricey, and even NPD's numbers aren't perfect, as it estimates sales for large retailers that don't participate in its data-gathering.

-- Z.

[Ed Oscuro]

Now I'm silly like that, but what's NPD? Surely not Nintendo Power Direct LOL

[zmweasel]

Now I'm silly like that, but what's NPD? Surely not Nintendo Power Direct LOL

Heh! Nope. www.npdfunworld.com. It offers free charts of the monthly top ten games across all systems, but to get the hard data, you have to pony up the hard cash (or weasel the info).

October '04 best-sellers, for example:

GTA: San Andreas (PS2)
NBA Live 2005 (PS2)
Mortal Kombat: Deception (PS2)
ESPN NBA 2K5 (PS2)
Tony Hawk Underground 2 (PS2)
Mortal Kombat: Deception (Xbox)
ESPN NBA 2K5 (Xbox)
Paper Mario 2 (GC)
Madden NFL 2005 (PS2)
X-Men Legends (PS2)

-- Z.

[kevincure]

If you want info on game data from before this year, and don't want to pay, read the annual corporate reports. For instance, the 2002 Annual Report from Nintendo should have sales data from 2001 (and indeed it does: http://www.nintendo.com/corp/annual_report.jsp ). If you buy shares in videogame companies, you can usually request the annual report and get the paper, non-pdf version.

For the latest data, though, NPD tends to be the most accurate.