After having done the same analysis for FPS: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=228761&page=1# , I am now doing it for the TPS genre.

These are all console combined sales for each title of the main series of the TPS major franchises so far:

Keep in mind that only the major franchises of the TPS genre are included and these are console only (no PC). Splatoon could be included in a future revision since we don't have the numbers yet for its sequel.

Resident Evil: This franchise is clearly on a downhill. RE7 sales are bad compared to what it did with RE5/RE6. Even when including digital sales, the game would not have reached 4M yet. Capcom would have to achieve a feat to reverse this trending with RE8 at this point.

Gears of War: The GoW franchise is also on a downhill compared to kind of numbers it did in the past. Again, the digital numbers would place GoW4 in a better position but would not be comparable to GoW1/2/3 numbers.

Mass Effect: Andromeda being considered as the fourth major entry of the series, is doing poorly so far. The game might have been released only 4 months ago, it did not managed to sell 2 million so far which is disappointing to say the least.

Metal Gear Solid: Here are better news for the TPS genre as the last MGS game did fair numbers. MGSV being released on 4 different platforms managed to sell about as well as MGS4 did on PS3. The fact that there was a 7 years gap betweeen the release of MGS4 and MGSV might have helped too.

Taking all this into consideration, we may come to the same conclusion as the one for FPS: the genre is faltering. Developers would have to put some fresh new concepts to increase the sales of the shooter genre overall.

What are your thoughts?

Edit: Due to many complaints, I have added Uncharted series as well.

Well, these figures are not entirely representant of the situation, since digital sales are more important than ever, especially with titles that have versions on PC.

But nice job nevertheless!

I think games that are mostly online multiplayer, are more likely to be bought digitally.

"Taking all this into consideration, we may come to the same conclusion as the one for FPS: the genre is faltering. Developers would have to put some fresh new concepts to increase the sales of the shooter genre overall.

What are your thoughts?"

I dont care about shooters (esp online focused ones), and I agree with your conclusion that developers should try fresh new concepts. Either that or go otherway around, and return to more story focused Shooters.

Yeah I know about those digital sales, they are hard to track but I tried to take them into consideration when analyzing the latest titles. While they are more important than before, I don't think they count for more than 25-30%. Also as I said, I do not count PC versions.

Splatoon is going to save this genre.

How MGS and RE (even earlier entries), Mass Effect are cosidered 3rd person shooters, while Uncharted, Tomb Raider and Last Of Us for instance aren't ?

There are several problems here.

For one, you include genre-blended titles like MGS and RE but not Uncharted or Last of US.

Second, you only count the "major franchises," but that completely ignores the fact that when the juggernauts falter, up-and-comers are given openings. So the mid-tier franchises at the very least are very relevant to evaluating the genre's over all reach.

Oh and uncontextualized trends are poor ways to judge future potential.  RE7 is down primarily because RE6 caused enormous damage to the brand.  RE7 has done a lot to revitalize that brand, so RE8 could easily begin reversing he decline if they follow up properly.

I feel like mgs should be swapped out for uncharted

Um metal gear solid? Yet no Uncharted. No splatoon. No....... fuck it I'm out

Its probably not as bad as it seems when we include digital sales.