In the US and Europe there are market research
firms that release a monthly report about how the industry is doing, hardware
and software sales, these are the NPD Group and the Gfk. As they are the only
companies to do that business in those areas their numbers are, for the most
part, not revealed to the public, that of course isn't an issue in Japan where
we have 3 trackers that release data on a weekly basis.
