Every month, The NPD Group releases sales figures of video games that were sold at retail. Their data lets us know how many units a game or console sold. The problem with The NPD’s numbers is that they don’t cover games that are sold digitally. The digital market is huge and not counting it creates an inaccurate representation of videogame sales. Thanks to a new partnership between The NPD Group and analyst firm EEDAR, digital sales will no longer be left out.

Once a month the NPD Group provides the press with retail sales figures for videogame software and hardware. It was the main way a lot of people learned how well a certain game had done in the month. We also had fun bringing you those numbers and elaborating on what they mean. Yesterday (October 12, 2010) NPD Group announced it won’t be providing sales numbers anymore.

The summer gaming doldrums hit the world’s largest videogame retailer hard, as GameStop missed its second-quarter earnings expectations and lowered third-quarter projections. The Wall Street Journal reports that GameStop shares fell seven percent in midday trading after the news broke. GameStop’s shares are 12 percent off for 2010 so far.

According to a recent article on Forbes.com, the videogame industry netted an impressive $40 billion in hardware and software sales worldwide in 2007. Looking at the numbers breakdown, it seems that games released as part of established franchises dominated (citing Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and Madden NFL 08), along with games aimed at more »