Darn it, it didn't post anything I said.
Concerning the long-tail, I am sorry if I didn't make it clearer. I meant 100% of titles after November 2007. No cherry picking. The actual number of titles I included in the analysis was around 257 titles. I included the Microsoft blurb, because its pretty close to what it still is today (its a little bit better in terms of long-tail due to sales/price reductions and so on which boost unit sales).
You may be right about LIMBO, but I would of said the same thing for Trials HD being a game that should of dropped harder, as its still a mostly single player game. LIMBO had some jaw-dropping sales in December (about 80k units), which makes me think that it may have a great lifespan. Who knows, it may be the one that breaks the trend.
Concerning price drops/sales, it has been a boon for every market that has it. The 'Race to the bottom' is a unique iOS phenomenon, which is not experienced by XBLA, PSN, Steam, or even Android. Most titles that go on sale for any of the stated platforms usually see great sales boosts, and are almost always a net-gain in terms of platform health, and revenues for the developer. Obviously, there has to be a balance between sales, and cheapening the platform porfolio, but as long as your only having 1-2 dozen games on sale a month, it seems to be a great thing.
For the MSP comment - I was talking about Microsoft Points, not Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price :-p
As for the Arcade visibiity of various sorting schemata - I think that shows why its so valuable to have multiple fronts for titles. Indie sales are really poor by comparison (both revenues and unit sales). Even if something like the Top Downloaded chart is the last in the list, it is still a list, which offers another feature space for a given set of titles. The more there are, the better, as fewer users are going to go through the process of searching for games, and then downloading them. That is one major issue with iOS vs. Android, I think, because Apple does a lot better job at displaying titles for sale.
Optimally, Microsoft should simply have 2 or 3 blades on the home page for DLC, Arcade, and Games-on-Demand content, rather than fill it with the other tripe they have. It'd go a long way, rather than have to click on downloadable content, then arcade, then indie, or whatever you want. Such a long conversion funnel can really hurt sales, and I think that every platform could benefit from such changes.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
