A few awesome numbers, and a few sad ones. But still, having X360>Wii before H3 should show us that Halo 3 is going to move a decent bit of consoles (already responsible for around 40,000 in the US, 500 in Japan, and god-knows-what in PALand).
| This Wk | Last Wk | Name | Week Sales | Total Sales | % Drop | Wks in Release | Expected LTD |
| #1 | #1 | Bioshock | 54,394 | 781,455 | -28.6% | 5 | 1,500,000+ |
| #2 | #5 | Madden 2008 | 45,050 | 1,117,285 | -13.2% | 6 | 2,000,000 |
| #3 | ---- | Eternal Sonata | 43,199 | 43,199 | N/A | 1 | 250,000 |
| #4 | #2 | .skate | 42,018 | 116,386 | -43.5% | 2 | 250,000 |
| #5 | #4 | Stranglehold | 29,145 | 246,940 | -45.8% | 3 | 450,000 |
| #6 | #3 | Medal of Honor: A | 28,018 | 230,443 | -54.1% | 3 | 400,000 |
| #7 | ---- | Juiced 2: HIN | 24,779 | 24,779 | N/A | 1 | 100,000 |
| #8 | #11 | TES: Oblivion | 22,690 | 1,289,044 | +28.4% | 79 | 1,500,000 |
| #9 | #7 | Tiger Woods 08 | 21,322 | 164,917 | -24.0% | 4 | 275,000+ |
| #10 | #8 | Two Worlds | 20,802 | 239,548 | -20.7% | 5 | 400,000 |
A few notes:
Overall sales for the X360 were pretty good - 667,000 without a major (50k+) release. Likewise, hardware was pretty good, as it got an increase.
#1. Bioshock continues to have great drops. Although it's slightly more steep than I expected, since Halo 3 launches next week on this series of charts, you'd expect with an extra 20k units in the supply chain, for BS to drop less. Oh well, should still reach 1.5m in the US alone, and probably 2m w/w or more.
#2. Madden 08 is a shocker - it has the smallest drop, sans Oblivion. Either M08 is now a reduced price, or those that are buying the X360s are picking up standard core-owner fare such as this kind of game.
#3. Eternal Sonata does very unimpressive numbers. However, after ioi butchered the Blue Dragon data, due to NPD being so low, it's no wonder. However, ioi only counted US numbers for BD uptil now, so we can safely assume that both BD and ES are about 8-10% higher than the charts show. ES is the 2nd highest-launching X360 JRPG thus far. Only BD has had more, and launched higher than EM and PSU by around 10k units.
#4. .skate got a pretty decent redux from last week, but had a pretty bad drop this week. Should hit decent (250k) numbers. However, Im sure with the succuess EA has had on the X360, they must be disappointed.
#5 and #6 Stranglehold and MOH:A duke it out in a rapidly-declining genre of AA games. It's suprising that Stranglehold had the smaller drop, however, I feel it might wind up appealing to the more 'generic' gamer than MOH:A did. Remember, 1m people went out and bought crap like "True Crime: Streets of LA" for the PS2. So obviously MS is drawling the stupid-core fanbase the PS2 had....Which is a good thing, as the X360 is showing small signs it might be drawing outside of it's Xbox fanbase.
No one cares about #7 Juiced 2. Die Juice, Die.
#8 finally re-enters the top-10 after a year hiatus. Expect Oblivion to stay in the top-10 to top-15 for another year, as the GOTY edition of Morrowind did roughly 50% of Xbox's total MW sales (around 2m w/w). I predict 1.5m as a very, very conservative number. Oblivion could hit 2m in the US alone. But with the fact there's a PS3 version, it could stop short.
#10 Two Worlds continues to counter Oblivion, and do suprisingly well, with a really low drop. With the 1.6 patch coming out soon, Two Worlds could hang up in the top 20-25 for awhile.
My opinion on how next week (which the #s could come as early as tommorow):
Obviously, we should expect Halo 3 to do around 2.5m units, if not more, in the US alone. That's based on the fact that h3 has had phenominal preorders (around 1.8m). The big question is how well the 100k+ extra units next week will move other software. The MGC Charts have shown that games across the board have taken a huge hit in terms of lack of playtime. GOW was down 50% in terms of playing last week (from 160k to around 80-85k). Halo3 wound up with over 400k tags last week, which was just....Ungodly.
The question is: how quickly will the new Halo 3 fanbase stop playing Halo and move on to other software, to give other games a massive boost? Budget titles, next week, should do phenominal. However, we'll just have to see. It could swing the other way for a week or two, and deplete the charts of non-Halo3 sales. Either way, alot of hardware shold move, and either immediately, or around Christmas, software should get a good kick in the pants.
| This Wk. | Last Wk. | Name | Week Sales | Total Sales | % Drop | Wks in Release | Expected LTD |
| #1 | #1 | TES: Oblivion | 1,493 | 75,051 | -18.6% | 9 | 100,000+ |
| #2 | #2 | Hitman: Blood Money | 776 | 10,921 | -32.6% | 4 | 12,500 |
| #3 | #3 | Eternal Sonata | 323 | 70,547 | -2.5% | 15 | 72,500 |
| #4 | #4 | Ghost Recon AW2 | 275 | 18,441 | N/A | 11 | 19,000 |
| #5 | #5 | Blue Dragon | 239 | 197,573 | +0.8% | 42 | 210,000 |
The few meager JP notes:
#1 Oblivion continues to do really, really well. It's now +1,800 units over DOA4, and the lead continues to increase. The big question is when Halo 3 launches, and sells a decent bit of H/W, what games it'll move. The question is: with such a West-Centric game in Halo, will it move Eastern or Western software more?
#2-5: nothing major. ES, BD and GRAW2 have really good holds. Maybe each game will exhibit good increases due to Halo 3.
JP outlook: Halo 3 launched with 45k units sold first day. I expect no less than 60,000 units first week, but it could top out at 70,000. Hardware should be up to 5,000. Big question is what games move along with H3. We should see sales go up across the board, with Oblivion and Hitman increase maybe 5% or so, whereas the lower games get a big boost (30%). But time will tell. All I care about is that Oblivion and Halo 3 are guarenteed 100k each, and that's great for Western fare in Japan - and even more impressive considering the horrid userbase of the X360.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
