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.
