It's the week we've all been waiting for: Price Drop Week. It's here, and it did move some systems. The X360 had a 50% increase in hardware. And for software?
| This Wk. | Last Wk. | Name | Wk Sales | Total Sales | % Drop | Wks. In Release | Expected LTD |
| #1 | #2 | Guitar Hero 2 | 29,623 | 1,089,400 | +8.8% | 19 | 1,500,000+ |
| #2 | #1 | NCAA Football 2008 | 28,695 | 538,330 | -37.1% | 4 | ~1,000,000 |
| #3 | #5 | Rainbow Six Vegas | 13,988 | 1,063,227 | +17.7% | 38 | 1,250,000 |
| #4 | #4 | Gears of War | 13,706 | 2,858,516 | +9.6% | 40 | 3,500,000 |
| #5 | #3 | Nascar 2008 | 13,200 | 110,090 | -50.6% | 4 | 225,000 |
| #6 | #7 | Overlord | 9,389 | 168,746 | -12.3% | 6 | 250,000 |
| #7 | #9 | Forza Motorsports 2 | 8,413 | 479,552 | -3.4% | 11 | 650,000 |
| #8 | #8 | Lego Star Wars 2 | 8,037 | 353,132 | -20.0% | 47 | 400,000? |
| #9 | #10 | POTC 3 | 7,942 | 171,781 | -6.0% | 12 | 215,000 |
| #10 | #6 | All Pro Football 2k8 | 7,744 | 96,080 | -33.3% | 4 | 210,000 |
| #11 | #11 | Fight Night RND3 | 7,650 | 1,039,511 | 0.0% | 77 | 1,100,000 |
| #12 | #13 | Ghost Recon AW2 | 7,609 | 614,019 | +2.7% | 23 | 700,000 |
| #13 | #11 | Transformers | 6,607 | 178,811 | -18.6% | 7 | 215,000 |
| #14 | #12 | The Darkness | 6,128 | 216,131 | -18.7% | 7 | 250,000 |
| #15 | #16 | Dead Rising | 6,019 | 784,705 | +1.6% | 53 | 840,000 |
| #16 | #18 | Saints Row | 5,744 | 829,580 | +3.6% | 50 | 875,000 |
| #17 | #17 | MLB 2k7 | 5,572 | 576,395 | -3.6% | 24 | 625,000 |
| #18 | #14 | The Bigs | 5,217 | 91,007 | -16.2% | 7 | 125,000 |
| #19 | #15 | DiRt | 5,196 | 147,724 | -13.4% | 8 | 175,000 :~( |
| #20 | #19 | Oblivion | 4,911 | 1,229,171 | 0.0% | 53 | 1,5000,000+ |
With a top20 chart, we can make a few observations about sales:
Although hardware is up significantly, software didn't change as much as I figured it would. There are, however, some big winners in software. Major titles, and budget titles saw a great increase in the week. Guitar Hero, RSV, GOW,FM2, POTC3, FNR3, GRAW2, DR and SR all saw increases, or minimal decreases compared to former weeks. This shows that most of the new X360 addopters were desiring either budget titles, or used titles.
Outside of this, APF 2k8 and NCAA08 saw decent drops compared with former weeks, and are starting to slow down their respective plummets.
Guitar Hero 2, after 19 weeks, re-emerged with the X360 software crown. Don't expect it to live past this week, as Madden is now out and probably ripping holes through sales charts.
Speaking of Madden 08, one cannot underestimate, what potential sales for the perennial powerhouse can be. If your reading the charts and aren't American, Madden 08 is to the US as what a main-series Final Fantasy is. Last year, Madden 07 sold 1.8 million copies in 2 days. With Madden 08 and the full week for the price drop, expect good (10-20%) increases in hardware. Also, it's almost a guarentee that software will hit 1,000,000 software units sold for the week. I will go even as far as saying Madden alone could hit 1m for the week. It's entirely possible. NCAA08 had a 20% opening week increase (from 290k to 360k). Madden 08 had a 750k o/w. If it had an NCAA08-esque increase, we should see 900,000 for it's expected opening week - therefore, 1m isn't too far off.
| This Wk | Last Wk | Name | Wk Sales | Total Sales | % Drop | Wks in Release | Expected LTD |
| #1 | #1 | TES: Oblivion | 3,981 | 56,343 | -55.1% | 3 | 100,000 |
| #2 | #3 | Trusty Bell: Chopins Dream | 973 | 67,668 | -16.1 | 9 | 75,000 |
| #3 | #2 | Ghost Recon: AW2 | 749 | 16,085 | -30.9% | 5 | 21,500 |
| #4 | #5 | Blue Dragon | 469 | 195,466 | -12.5% | 36 | 210,000+ |
| #5 | #4 | Saints Row | 437 | 16,945 | -22.0% | 8 | 17,500 |
| #6 | #6 | Forza Motorsports 2 | 394 | 27,160 | -16.4% | 12 | 30,000 |
| #7 | #7 | Viva Pinata | 383 | 18,539 | -12.8% | 31 | 20,000+ |
A few notes, before the *major finding*:
Oblivion had a pretty large, but expected drop from last week. However, Oblivion's sales were adjusted down about 1,200 units from last week - to mirror Media Create sales. Expect Oblivion to continue to have similar drops to Trusty Bell. However, at this point, Trusty Bell was selling about 200 units less/wk. If Oblivion has a similar 30% drop, expect around 2400-2800 units next week for Oblivion.
Also, my initial prediction of Saints Row's sales was nearly dead-on. When it sold 12k first week, I stated it'd sell 17.5k. With it's rapid drop off, 18k is about where it'll end - only 500 units away.
Viva Pinata continues to impress me more than most any other title. MS really did well with making VP, and putting it in Japan (also, why they're going DS). 30 weeks after it's launch, it's still charting despite a 1,500 unit opening week - it's sold over 10x it's initial launch sales, and still selling at about 25% of it's first week. I wonder: had VP launched in December near Blue Dragon, could it of sold more? I think it could have.
Also, my *major finding*: GEMIN, a Japanese website released the "Famitsu 500" as stated on this website. Famitsu reported that as of December 31st, Blue Dragon sales were at 135,240. VG Chartz numbers? At 125,000. This represents a 10,000 unit, or an 8% discrepancy. Assuming this is the case (which it seems), then the actual Blue Dragon sell-through rate is between 205,000-210,600.
So that means Blue Dragon is even more impressive, and is inline with the fact that MS/Mistwaker stated that sell-through had already reached 200k a few weeks ago.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
