I don't see how it's possible that a game such as Fable 2 could sell 350,000 copies on Day-1 for North America, and then fail to sell half of that the entire week in Europe.
Go look at any X360 game in the past year: sales are pretty predictable. First-week sales are usually around 45-50% of what NA sales, except for overly American titles (Madden) or uber-sellers that the European fanbase just can't support (Halo 3).
Should Fable 2 hit 700,000 this week in North America (which is very likely, if not a lock), it would be an absolute shock if Fable 2 sold under 300,000 units in Europe. Again, sales data backs this up.
Here are the ranges for sales for Fable 2, on first week:
North America: 600,000-850,000
Europe/PAL: 250,000-450,000
Japan: 15,000-50,000
Total: 865,000-1,350,000 first week (including Japan)
Pick your poison on that end. Fable 2 has already entered the "best days ever" list on 360voice.com - It's now the 10th biggest game/day in the history of 360voice. And thats WITHOUT Europe or Japan. That's HUGE.
As for hardware - I think it's hard to say, but I'm leaning toward Fable 2 having a positive effect.
The advantages that F2 brings to the table are:
1) Under-represented genre
2) Massive sales in said under-represented genre
3) Highly rated
4) Sequel to an Xbox game
You can look at it from a variety of angles. It has the unique fact that it's going to be a massive debut for a WRPG of all things, which is amazing. Because of that, I tend to think that somewhere along the line, it'll bring in the last few Xbox gamers that haven't made the switch.
Now, how much that is - I don't know. I'd venture to think that it'll give the X360 a small boost this coming week - maybe 10,000-15,000 units according to VGC, but sell very well, and be a deciding factor in new purchasers around Christmas.
I do agree with the concept of diminishing returns for exclusives. It's pretty much proven to happen, especially with a console that's 3 years old, and sold over 20m units. However, I do think that having yet another certifiable blockbuster (in both game sales and reviews) could make it deciding factor, sub-consciously, for many users. Those values can't be extrapolated, but are very important.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
