While i don't feel a game like GoW would push tons of sales at this point in PS3's life, the massive shortages definitely didn't help.

However, a game like GT5 better have appropriate stock levels as that will cause a bump.

Good post, there good be many reason to explain a back order.

I think I can explain. Most companies (amazon, best buy, gamestop as example) were already sold out of PS3 before GOW release. So out of the 82 K of sales this week, maybe 70K out of it came from a new Sony shipment while the other 12 K would be from companies that still have a few PS3 in stock. Im not sure about the numbers, but I guess, big part of it was from a new shipment as most places were already sold out last week. This can explain why sales are lower even with Sony shipping console. But im not sure, maybe Sony wasnt even able to ship unit and the whole 82K was from merchant still having inventory. Someone knows for sure?

Uh, let's not forget PS3 also had a big game last week (Final Fantasy XIII). Sales wouldn't have had much of a spike anyway, but higher demand from the week before didn't help with the shortages.

More likely, it's simply that most GoW fans got a PS3 long ago, much closer to launch. This also happened with GTA4, FFXIII, Halo 3, and all the other HD exclusives (and, to be fair, most Wii exclusives too).

There are no system-sellers anymore; people have stopped buying consoles that way. Now they buy the consoles early on -almost like investments- and wait for their favorite games to come out. This is great for initial hardware sales, and it also gives early games a unique advantage in that gamers need something to tide them over: witness the sales of Disgaea 3, for example, as compared to its predecessors. But it also means that tracing system sales to individual games is almost impossible nowadays.

you mean how all of those saw spiked sales in excess of 150k units over a couple of weeks?

you know why? Because we(americans) are stupid. We don't see value and are uneducated. GOW deserves better than us.

The God of War bundles in Europe made me wonder, is it possible Sony is allocating as much stock as possible in Europe right now, leaving America to be understocked?

This could be justified both because things are usually more profitable in Europe (consoles more profitable, currency stronger) and because the HD marketshare war is so much closer in that region. If you've got a shortage, it might make sense to make sure you can get ahead as much as possible in one region, rather than catching up a tiny bit in another.

In other words, maybe higher-ups at Sony have decided it's more profitable to make sure things are stocked well in Europe, and so the US has been set to low priority for a while, despite the fact that God of War has a bigger impact in America.

Just a random thought.

You might be onto something. Did you know that not only is the ps3 more expensive in Europe, but that Sony makes 30 22 yen on every euro?

1 Euro = 122.831092 Japanese yen

1 British pound = 137.115491 Japanese yen

http://www.game.co.uk/Consoles/PlayStation-3/Sony-PlayStation-3-250GB-Slim-Console-/~r343677/

270 pounds for the ps3 in UK. = 370,00yen pre ps3. = 340$ US

Weird how they still have shortages, even worse than before, when they even said they would be ready for this week... good job, sony :s