Circana’s analysts are among the best known in the U.S. market for publishing game industry sales data. The most public analyst on the group is Mat Piscatella, who regularly reports data on the game’s success, but doesn’t give specific numbers, only showing the dynamics and status of certain projects relative to others.
it became knownstarting in July 2026, Xbox will no longer provide U.S. digital game sales data to Circana. Electronic Arts also stopped transmitting data.
Xbox’s refusal to provide data to analysts will have a significant impact on the overall information they can work with. When Xbox participated in the program, analysts obtained accurate information about sales through the Microsoft Store, including items from Microsoft itself and third-party companies. At present, Circana has not obtained reliable sales data for a large series such as “The Final Hour”, and the indicators of some third-party projects must be calculated based on existing information and analysis models. Previously, Xbox data could be used to indirectly measure digital sales of certain items from companies not participating in the program.
EA also stopped interacting with analysts. As Circana points out, this happened around the same time as Electronic Arts transitioned into a private company.
After the change, Circana’s list of partners remains Bandai Namco, Capcom, Crystal Dynamics, Disney Interactive Studios, Eidos, Konami, Plaion, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take-Two and Warner Bros. At the same time, Nintendo hasn’t provided this kind of information for a long time.
Note that there are also reports online that Xbox may be pulling out of game sales data, a similar system used to monitor the gaming industry, but for the European market. As of press time, there has been no official confirmation.
