In announcing its Q1 2010 earnings last week, Sega also presented a sales figure of 150,000 units for The Conduit during its first week on sale (June 23 through June 30). Just a little more than a week earlier, figures released by NPD put sales of the game for June 23 through July 4 at just 72,000 copies -- not a small discrepancy by any means. We contacted Sega to find out which report was the most accurate. Turns out they both were.
Sega's 150k figure, the publisher told us, was based on copies of the game shipped to retailers during that first week. Although a rep explained that this figure was "global," the only part of the globe the game was available in before July 10 (the UK launch) was North America. Those 72,000 units reported by NPD, then? Those were how many of the 150,000 copies shipped were sold-through to consumers (a.k.a. actually sold), according to Sega.
While this certainly makes the game's first week less impressive, we'll need to see how The Conduit did for all of July before delivering a fair verdict. We'll have those numbers as soon as the next NPD report hits.
