This is the sales charts subsection of
WikiProject Video games' Reference library. Since the 1980s, many
market research firms around the world (such as
the NPD Group) have tracked and published data regarding the sales of video games. This page archives and organizes the charts released by such firms, to give Wikipedians easy access to information about games' commercial performance. The sales charts archive is dynamic—by design, it will never be completed—but it can be improved with the addition of links to reliable charts in the relevant subsections.
PC Data was an American
market research and
point of sale tracking firm founded in 1991 and based in
Reston, Virginia. Its founder, Ann Stephens, had worked previously as the head researcher for the
Software Publishers Association. Initially, the firm tracked only the United States' computer software market,[1] but later expanded to include hardware sales and, in 1999, Internet traffic.[1][2] By 1996, The Washington Post described PC Data as "the preeminent tabulator of facts and figures of the monthly sales of consumer software in the United States."[1] Its coverage of the United States retail software sales market had grown to 80% by September 1998.[3] In March 2001,
The NPD Group purchased PC Data's point-of-sale research branch and merged it with its Intelect Market Tracking division.[4][5]
NPD Intelect and derivative computer game tracking firms
NPD Intelect was a North American market tracking company. It was founded in July 1999, when
the NPD Group and
GfK co-purchased the entirety of market research firm Intelect ASW, a company focused according to The New York Times on "the consumer electronics, information technology and appliance industries."[6] In early 2001, the NPD Group purchased
PC Data and merged its operations into NPD Intelect,[5] and 60 members of PC Data's staff migrated to the company.[7] Intelect subsequently formed a subdivision dedicated to the
console game market, NPDFunworld, in October 2001. NPDTechworld, a branch dedicated to the technology and software sector, followed in December.[8]