Very excited to do this chart. Madden was rather close to what I felt would happen. And hardware is up, as well as significant software boosts as well.
| This Wk | Last Wk | Name | Wk Sales | Total Sales | % Drop | Wks in Release | Expected LTD |
| #1 | --- | Madden 2008 | 889,072 | 889,072 | --- | 1 | 2,000,000 |
| #2 | #1 | Guitar Hero 2 | 33,381 | 1,122,781 | +12.5% | 20 | 1,500,000 |
| #3 | #2 | NCAA 2008 FB | 20,528 | 558,858 | -28.4% | 5 | ~1,000,000 |
| #4 | #3 | Rainbow Six Vegas | 18,219 | 1,081,446 | +30.9% | 39 | 1,300,000 |
| #5 | #4 | Gears of War | 16,506 | 2,875,022 | +20.4% | 41 | 3,500,000 |
| #6 | #7 | Forza Motorsports 2 | 8,567 | 488,119 | +1.1% | 12 | 650,000+ |
| #7 | #6 | Overlord | 8,360 | 177,106 | -10.8% | 8 | 245,000 |
| #8 | #5 | Nascar 2008 | 8,348 | 118,438 | -37.2% | 4 | 175,000 |
| #9 | #11 | Ghost Recon: AW2 | 8,225 | 622,244 | +7.8% | 24 | 750,000 |
| #10 | #9 | POTC3 | 7,916 | 179,697 | 0.0% | 13 | 250,000 |
#11-20:
| This Wk | Last Wk | Name | Wk Sales | Total Sales | % Drop | Wks in Release | Expected LTD |
| #11 | #8 | Lego Star Wars 2 | 7,684 | 368,853 | -5.0% | 49 | 400,000 |
| #12 | #14 | Dead Rising | 7,598 | 792,840 | +16.9% | 54 | 850,000+ |
| #13 | #12 | Fight Night Round 3 | 7,340 | 1,053,039 | +5.7% | 78 | 1,200,000 |
| #14 | #15 | Saints Row | 7,294 | 837,385 | +17.7% | 51 | 900,000 |
| #15 | #17 | MLB 2k6 | 5,866 | 582,261 | +3.5% | 25 | 625,000 |
| #16 | #10 | All Pro Football 2k8 | 5,695 | 101,775 | -27.3% | 5 | 150,000? |
| #17 | #13 | Transformers | 5,640 | 184,451 | -15.2% | 8 | 215,000 |
| #18 | #19 | TES: Oblivion | 5,254 | 1,234,425 | +6.1% | 74 | 1,500,000+ |
| #19 | #16 | The Darkness | 5,251 | 221,382 | -14.6% | 8 | 250,000 |
| #20 | #20 | Call of Duty 3 | 5,114 | 1,108,509 | +6.2% | 41 | 1,200,000 |
I'm going to add the next 10 sometime soon, but a few notes:
Not only is this one of the largest (if not the), largest weeks the X360 has ever had in software, overall sales were up from last week by a small percentage. As you can see just from the top 10, budget games and killer-apps are the order of the day. Despite NCAA2008 decreasing, it's within 50,000 units of last year's entire LTD. Very good numbers, considering NCAA08 should stay in the top 10 for a few more weeks.
#1 Madden did phenominal. It saw almost a 20% increase (ala NCAA08) from Madden 07. What does this mean? If it winds up with a 20% increase, M08 should hit around 1,920,000 units LTD, or more. This is very good news for EA, and the X360, as the X360 has taken the lion's share of every sports game made this generation thus far. (except maybe for Tiger Woods Golf).
Outside of this, every other title did very well, GH2, RSV, GOW and GRAW2 saw increases all around. Forza 2 also saw it's first increase since the drops. This doesn't bode too well for FM2, as it means that it would be contunuing to drop rather quickly if it wasn't for the drops - however, it is still $60.
Outside of the top 10, budget games such as Saints Row, and Dead Rising did rathter well on the week. More data to come. But lets discuss:
With Madden 08 being so overly dominating (almost outselling every other version combined), how will EA work with the X360, as it's obviously EA's big moneymaker? Hardware was up for the week (13%+), can it stay at that level and increase with Bioshock and Blue Dragon in the following weeks? IMO, these numbers do bode well for the next few weeks. New consumers are rapidly adopting X360 software after the pricedrop.
And finally: how low will M08 go next week? It's obviously going to be insanely frontloaded, but by how much? We'll probably see M08 drop to 150-250k next week, but should we be worried if its lower?
| This Wk | Last Wk | Name | Wk Sales | Total Sales | % Drop | Wks in Release | Expected LTD |
| #1 | #1 | TES: Oblivion | 5,178 | 63,649 | -15.3% | 4 | 100,000 |
| #2 | #2 | Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream | 813 | 68,481 | -16.5% | 10 | 75,000 |
| #3 | #3 | Ghost Recon: AW2 | 660 | 16,745 | -11.9% | 6 | 19,500 |
| #4 | #4 | Blue Dragon | 431 | 195,897 | -8.1% | 37 | 205,000 |
| #5 | #7 | Viva Pinata | 386 | 18,925 | +0.7% | 32 | 20,000+ |
| #6 | #5 | Saints Row | 356 | 17,302 | -18.9% | 9 | 17,500+ |
| #7 | #6 | Forza Motorsports 2 | 324 | 27,484 | -17.8% | 13 | 30,000 |
Although there wasn't a huge change in sales due to Obon, Oblivion is the exception. VGC undertracked sales for Oblivion by around 1,500 units last week, and sales remained very, very strong this week. Having a 15% drop, despite being western is just amazing for Oblivion. Right now, Oblivion is tracking stronger in it's 4th week than ANY non-holiday release. Oblivion is also about 4,000+ units ahead of Trusty Bell for the same week, and just 5,000 units behind DOA4. If sales continue, Oblivion stands a good chance of beating DOA4's sales of 103,000. Oblivion's 3rd and 4th week sales are 3,000 units ahead of DOA4's pace for both weeks. From this week on, DOA4 sold another 35,000 units. However, again, Oblivion sold 5,178 to DOA4's 2,020 4th week sales.
How is this possible that Oblivion, a western RPG of all things, is so handily beating Japanese games? I present 3 reasons:
#1. Oblivion is the 2nd highest rated game on the X360 (just below DOA4, and matching Blue Dragon's 38/40 score).
#2. There are few other major titles available for sale on the X360 (we're in a sales slump. People have to buy something, right?)
#3. Unlike Trusty Bell, and other games, it isn't suffering from the "Dragon Quest Swords" effect. Due to the length and replayability of Oblivion, I do not believe many used copies are available. With this being the case, anyone wanting to purchase Oblivion have to buy a new, not used copy. This is why US games like Oblivion, Dead Rising, and Fight Night 3 are selling so well: lack of competition and decent length of the game.
Outside of Oblivion's magnificent 4th week, other Western games did poorly, while Viva Pinata and Blue Dragon continued their great runs. MS really has a winner in Japan with Viva Pinata. Despite horrid 1st week sales, the hold for VP has been stellar. Hopefully MS greenlights a VP2 and puts it in Japan.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
