I had planned on making these threads a daily thing but haven't made one for several weeks, so now I'm just going to make them whenever I feel like it. I've also changed the format just a bit, I'm not allowing people to view the results in the poll yet, the poll will be active for 8 hours then I will update the original post with the poll results and my take on why the game saw the change in sales it did, which I hope will spur more conversation.  So I'm done rambling, here is today's game of the day.

Game of the Day

(Highlighting a game to talk about the change in sales)

9/10

Grand Theft Auto 4

Description: Today's game of the day is Grand Theft Auto 4. One of the most anticipated games of all time before its release, GTA4 broke pretty much every multiplatform opening week record on its release. Since then it has accumulated a massive ~13 million sales.  Still that falls well short of the 20 million Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has sold. In fact as of now it has sold less than all three last gen Grand Theft Auto games.  That said the combined PS2/Xbox userbase last gen was ~150 million compared to the 52.5 million PS3/360 userbase. So does that decrease in potential customers explain why Grand Theft Auto 4 sold less than its predecessors, or are there other factors?  Vote in the poll, and leave a comment about what you think.

Post Updated: Poll Removed, and results posted.

So what do you think, do you agree with the majority, is the decrease in sales due to poor fan reception?  Is that the choice you expected to receive the most votes? Check out the next page for my thoughts, and add some of your own.

Previous Change in Sales Game of the Day Threads.

Call of Duty (8/28)

Mario Party 8 (8/27)

It's the first console GTA game of this gen.
San Andreas sold better than GTA III and Vice City but it sure wasn't that much better (if at all...)

Well, it certainly isn't done selling. It hasn't even recieved a Platinum Hits or Greatest Hits yet.

GTA san andreas was still in the charts last year...So I say LEGS!!

I do think it is interesting how different the sales of GTA 4 has been, the games last gen had good openings but were really more about selling for a long period of time. According to the charts GTA4 sold about 10 million in the first 10 weeks, and has sold about 3 million more in the 60 weeks since. Like Lostplanet said GTA SA was still in the top 200 recently, and for the week ending the 29th still sold 4.5k worldwide on PS2, only about 10k less than GTA4 on the 360&PS3. As outlawauron said maybe the greatest hits/platinum hits release will spark some more sales, but as of now it looks like GTA 4 will wind up significantly lower than San Andreas, and probably lower than Vice City.

I'd blame the sales on bad word of mouth. GTAIV just wasn't as fun as the older ones. The emphasis on realism and the "mature" theme resulted in the removal of a lot of the mayhem that brought people to the series in droves.

Most casual GTA players just liked to blow crap up with crazy weapons and attack helicopters. GTAIV had little of that, and as a result had weak legs compared to its predecessors.

GTA 4 just wasn't that good of a game. It's legs are nothing compared to older GTA titles that were much more fun.

i have nothing to add except that this is a very nice post.

There are some interesting suggestions in this thread that I had not thought of.

@kitler, thanks I plan on making it a regular thing, so please look out for future ones.

While I'm still waiting to display the results for a few hours when the poll closes (for another 5 1/2 hours), I do think it is interesting that after 30 votes 2 of the choices still don't have a single vote.

The poll is going to close in a little less than 4 hours and I would really like to get some more votes in, and also get more people commenting. There are a lot more votes than comments, so people who are voting please leave a comment saying why you voted for what you did.

After my comment about GTA 4's sales compared to GTA SA's weekly sales, The numbers for the 5th were added, and with the increase in PS3/360s sold, the weekly sales of GTA 4 went up about 12k. So is the smaller install base this gen what is holding the game back? Will a greatest/platinum hits release give it legs similar to San Andreas?