As ever i am here posing a question that i hope will spark interesting debate and some intellectual thinking. As the title suggests, do forums (like this) effect sales of consoles, games, in general the industry. I hypothesise that they do. My logic works like this;

1) Forums spark either fanboy wars or genuine intellectual debate on these topics. This debate is global and highly reactive. Rumours and news drive the forums 24/7.

2) Forums then represent a plentiful data source for analytical companies that are interested in how financially successful video game companies may or may not be. Not only that, but the video game companies themselves can utilise the internet resources to trend public opinion almost instantly to see what woks, what doesn't, whats hot, whats not, etc.

3) These "analysts" then publish their "findings" which influences investments and may make it into the news. Once the media gets a hold of it the news becomes sensationalised and thus public opinion en masse is influenced. However if the media doesn't get a hold of it then it cycles back into the internet and internet forums which then just generates more debate and more posts which then go full circle. The same is true about media reports.

4) Thus the circle of life is complete. With the final outcome being self fulfilling prophecy. Media Attention drives sales up or down, return to step one. The same is true about internet forums/blogs as people come more and more to rely on the internet as a news and information source, in terms of it being able to drive public opinion in a certain direction.

For anyone that has seen word of mouth business advertising at work i'm essentially outlining this on a bigger scale. But on the smaller scale, one persons opinion of how good a game is or isn't, through word of mouth, will directly effect a person who is as yet undecided whether or not to buy that game.

Out of interest i have been following the general trends of fanboy discussion / industry debate just through google. Essentially i have googled PS3, Wii and XBox360 on and off for the past couple of months to see a bit of trend (although this is very generalised) The trend is that the google results for Ps3 are up to 60% negative forum debate, Wii upto 80% positive forum debate and XBox360 Esentially 50/50. Looking at sales growth aligning to this it seems  at face value that the sales trends follow the blog / forum debates in terms of initial expected growth. Personally i didn't think the Wii would do as well as it has so far, PS3 would be doing better and X360 would keep trucking, but sales numbers speak for themselves, and i am glad for Ninty and the industry as a whole. Inovation is what keeps things interesting. Revolution, not evolution is what breathes life into new areas.  

 Now i'd be interested to see what other people think on this? Do you think that your internet forum posts have an effect on sales (when viewed as a collective of information). My final comment on this would be - HYPE. I have personally seen a lot of negative press in Australia about PS3, and limited, but postive press about Wii in the past couple of months. I also feel that this press has been directly effected by the internet buzz for and against Wii and PS3 which has appropriately effected the hype surrounding the launches and games sales. As much as i love my Wii and wouldn't personally buy a PS3 i do feel that the PS3 has had a significant amount of bad press surrounding it heavily based on the chinese whispers that have come out of the internet, which could be seen to be unfair. But the internet is part of the modern age now, so i'm not sure it's really unfair.

 Thoughts?

I think it helps software sales more than hardware.

True, but i think the debate on this website has shown that hardware sales are interelated to software sales and the two have to be considered concurrently.

do forums effect sales?

Yes. to those people who read forums. Diverging from the console market, lets Delve into the MMORPG(pc) market...

there are dozens of FAN gaming sites that specialize/focus on mmorpg's, those of us (me included) who play mmo's read the sites, and as a mmo goes into beta and into release, if we are first interested in game, we tend to read what other people SAY about the game- even in beta- and give recommendations as to how good the game is, or how POOR the game is...most of us have not missed the "this game is crappy don't buy it" call on a game yet. (i have beta tested over a dozen mmo's and have been right for most of them on how they would do in retail)

 MMO's are a unique IP and get really only one chance to garner huge subscribers/numbers (typically its 15 a month to play in the US-along with the box cost) and that is AT RELEASE...

 most everyone here has probably heard of World of Warcraft. I know several people who work at Blizzard and were working on World of Warcraft. one of them asked me if i wanted in on the testing of the game- i said, hell yes, since i love the mmo genre, and know that blizzard puts out quality games and wanted to see how their mmo (and the only reason why WoW was made was because several people in blizzard played everquest and in discussions in game, said, we can do better) was shaping up etc..

 i was blown away with the quality- in ALPHA- that the game had. and mentioned it on my mmo fansite i had. i was under nda but i could say that i was testing the game, and gave my honest opinion about how the mmo players were going to react to it (at the time lineage 1/2 was the largest commercial mmo's at around 2 million users)  i said that within the first 6 months wow was going to be as big as lineage...then beta hit, and the nda dropped and thoughts, pictures, movies appeared, and the interest in the game skyrocketed among mmo fans...and the game released

 2.5 yrs later  (now) wow has 8.5 million current active subscribers...most of the initial drive for the subscriber base was due to the praise that alot -and i mean alot - of the fanboi gushing i and other mmo fansite's were doing about it. the fact that it was a blizzard game helped drive sales but positive  feed back about the game prior and during release = more sales initially

now lets take Everquest 2- released a month before WoW. one of the most expensive mmo's ever developed (wow cost more) they went cutting edge for graphics, etc. and the overall  feedback of the design spec's by the beta testers was.....Bad. especially since EQ2 had WoW looking over it's shoulder with everyone going holy shit about wow. I also got into the EQ2 beta (since i know a few Dev's over at SoE) and got a chance to beta test that game and proved feedback...i was underwhelmed by the quality of product being produced, the poor frames per second the client provided with - at the time- the  best ATI video card out there (yes i spent 500 dollars for the x800pro when it came out) under the lowest in game settings, etc. the game was basically unplayable at times with sub 10 Frames per second COMMON in cities...(slide show) when the NDA for THAT game dropped....the bad feedback from the mmo fansites was pretty overwhelming, people still BOUGHT the game (i got sent a free copy by soe. along with a 6 month subscription pass) but initial sales are not what drives this genre,, Retention is what drives the genre...

 buy game 50 bucks- no subscription fee = only 50 bucks from that sale

mmo buy game 50 bucks...play a month then decide to subscribe @15 a month=  144-180 dollars (depending on the payment plan selected, yr subscriptions cost ~12 a month -monthly paying is 15) annual revenue on that Single box sale- potentially...

 sales results for eq2- decent box numbers initially (about 400 thousand boxes sold in the first few months)... CRAPPY retention (sub 50%)

 sales results for WoW- unbelievable box numbers initially (800 thousand in the first month ...) and around an 85% retention rate.

the difference between the two games?

 quality of product...

RIGHT NOW - 2 yrs later- EQ2 is in excellent shape - as a game- good client performance, they fixed alot of what was broken in the game at release... and yet, they have sub 300 thousand playing the game. WHY?

Because the initial EQ2 sucks balls comments (and it did)when it was released meant that  it had no chance to become one of the big players in the market..

 WoW on the other hand..Daaaammmmnn.

Well it sure didn't help Snakes on a Plane much. But I'm willing to give it a little more influence in the gaming department.

Sony also had their hands on Star Wars Galaxies. It opened with much fanfare and great sales. But the combination of releasing an unfinished product and incompetent management killed what should have been a guaranteed success. Not only did they grab defeat from victory, but the experience was so distasteful that many people swore off SOE games forever.

Eh hem.  Here's my well thought response to the question.

 NO!

Actuly yes.

Godfather Wii is the latest one. When a good game no one belives in gets lot of press in forums that means extra sales. Or small nice games witrhout advertisment can forums mean a lot.

Having just read the Wii - Godfather thread it would appear to be the ideal example of how forums/blogs play a part in sales.

I personally think that the process is essentially unfair however. For example who are the people who write reviews and take time out to write in forums and blogs? People who have a passion for the industry and gaming in general. So these people normally have tastes that are much more discerning when compared with joe public. Essentially because the people in these feedback loops are so discerning and their opinions are so readily accessible then they can have an almost stifling effect on the industry. Alternatively if more of the joe public participate in the feedback loop it can have the opposite effect obviously and push the industry forward faster. 

I don't believe forums/blogs directly helps sales - rather it's the act of one person buying a game, showing it to the other friends who do not frequent the forum and said friends then spreading word of mouth to other people, that is really helping sales.

Sort of the hype surrounding the Wii. :)