– If the game company is based in Japan, you can access their quarterly info on their websites (usually). I don’t know the complete details, but apparently there are some Japanese laws that require that they report in this matter, so it’s easier to find sales numbers from Nintendo, Sony, Konami, Capcom and the like than Take Two or the Microsoft gaming division.

– Sell-in vs. sell-thru – keep this in mind whenever you read a press release. Companies often like to obscure the sales numbers in this way by mentioning that a game has sold X million copies, but this often means “sold to retailers to stock in their warehouses and shelves” – i.e. sell-in. Sell thru actually means “in the customers’ hands.”

– Like Factory said above me, if the company is public, they’re obligated to their shareholders and misleading them about how the company is performing is asking for trouble.