77% dropoff for Grand Theft Auto? Wow, that's more than I expected too. To me, the rate at which GTA sales hold up is by far the most interesting question in the market right now. I know I'm not the only one who theorized that the latest GTA game would see weaker staying power than its predecessors, due to install base/cost issues. Now, it's WAY too early to draw any conclusions from this, but I find it interesting nonetheless.
Another sign of a front-loaded game is a large increase in hardware sales on the week of release. Generally speaking, the bigger the spike in hardware, the more front-loaded the sales of the software tend to be. (The ultimate example of this is the sales of Final Fantasy games in Japan, which often spike hardware by 100% on release week - and also do 2/3 of lifetime sales in week #1!) The latest Grand Theft Auto might fall into this category, albeit to a lesser extent - time will tell.
It's also noteworthy that Halo 3's sales fell by 83% worldwide in week #2 (and Halo is usually referenced as a classic case of a heavily hyped, highly front-loaded game).
End of 2008 totals: Wii 42m, 360 24m, PS3 18.5m (made Jan. 4, 2008)
