Oh yeah. Cmas is going to be ridiculous. GTA, MK Wii and Wii Fit will continue to have huge sales over the holidays (along with MGS4 and SSBB to a lesser extent), but having them launch early just opens up more sales for other games. After seeing the huge breakthrough successes of Assassin's Creed and COD4 this year, I wouldn't be surprised to see another franchise break through for the HD consoles this holiday.
There's a lot of games that people aren't mentioning though, which could be major hits. With the Wii Wheel established and less competition on the HD consoles, Need for Speed could be massive again this year. Given their current love of Sonic, Sonic Unleashed could sell 1M on Wii in Europe alone. The third fourth-gen Pokemon game could be out. Mario Party 9. The first major batch of Balance Board games. The potential for Rock Band to break through like Guitar Hero III did. Guitar Hero IV, which will almost certainly pull out all the stops. Spore. Animal Crossing Wii could open with 1M sales in Japan. Wii and DS continuing to reach new heights in hardware sales without price drops.
Let's just say it isn't going to hurt this year much if Resistance 2 or Banjo 3 get delayed to 2009.
"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.
