How are sales figures calculated when the company doesn't state how many they sold during earnings calls?

- The NPD Group estimates it at retailers. But unless games are given to a retailer on credit (which doesn't happen nearly as much anymore, if at all, after GAME in the UK went into administration/bankruptcy), once they are shipped to a retailer, they're "sold."
Is "shipped" equal sold or does "sold" count as sold?


- Alternatively, for digital games like PSN or XBLA releases...someone checks the Leaderboards and counts how many entries there are. Seriously.

Don't trust any journalist/analyst sales figures unless the publisher directly gave it them.

Square-Enix is trying to restructure to focus on mobile gaming. It's easy for them to say, "we expected to sell an unrealistic number than we did, this will justify our move to get out of AAA titles and focus on cheap to develop, terrible games that the Japanese eat up." Basic shady business practices. Oops, we failed, now approve of our radical change to business strategy.

Tim Schafer is Tim Schafer. This always happens with him. He gets really excited about a title, overscopes it, and stuff gets cut. It's just more transparent with the Kickstarter project. If this isn't an isolated example like you claim, you'll have to find another one because Schafer is a terrible example for the point you're trying to prove.