P.S. Oh, and--like Steve Jobs and Perrin Kaplan--one more thing: I'll close out on a high note, with some good scoop for this edition of MMQB. Unfortunately, this scoop will taste bittersweet, as it's also bad news for us, our fellow journalists, and forum-dwellers across North America. Beginning with the October sales data, which is due later this month, NPD is going to cut way back on what they share on a monthly basis with their non-paying customers, i.e. media.

What does this mean?

For starters, no more hardware sales data. (Can you taste the bitter tears streaming from various forums and message boards?) Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will of course be free to release their own sales info—and presumably leak that of their competitors, if it'll make them look good—but we will no longer receive that data from NPD. Software sales figures will only be given for the Top Five SKUs, not the Top Ten as we normally receive. We'll eventually receive hardware numbers and Top Ten software numbers, but only on a quarterly and annual basis. There are signs that this may only be a temporary pullback, but for now, this is were things stand.

As you can see, this is going to make our job more difficult. But we couldn't have become upper echelon QBs if we didn't have a variety of well-placed sources embedded throughout the industry. So fear not, loyal readers. Monday Morning Quarterback may not be the world's timeliest blog feature, but we can promise you that our analysis and speculation will always be based on the most complete set of numbers we can get our hands on.