The dropoffs are console specific.  It all depends on momentum.  My benchmark for dying launch momentum is when sales drop to half of November numbers (for instance, even though PS3 sold around 200k in November, sales were still over half of that in February - not all momentum is lost yet).  Gamecube had 1.30 million in the USA by Jan 1 2002...but had not hit 1.4 million by Feb 1.  Xbox had 1.5 million in the USA by Jan 1 2002, but sales stayed in 100k+ in January.  Gamecube momentum took huge hits in Q1 2002.  Nintendo 64 and Xbox took pretty big hits, but Mario Kart 64 & Halo were both big (fairly revolutionary) multiplayer hits on systems with established 1 player killer apps (Mario 64 and Halo).  I loved Pikmin, but to most people, GC launched with no one player killer app.  You need a big multiplayer game and a big single player game for a strong launch and long lasting momentum (e.g. Zelda, Wii Sports).  PS3 had Resistance for North America which handles launch game duty fairly well...except in Japan. 

I think it's commonly accepted that the GameCube was kicked to the dust when the games that were being released weren't so great... great for nintendo fans, but that's all, and they were dwindling because of the poor quality of the games.

GameCube kept up with the Xbox for a fair while, but then the end of the GameCube's life was just bring out shit re-hash after shit re-hash.  I loved the GameCube at the start, and stopped playing Nintendo games at the end of last gen because everything was just so terribly crap. DK Bongo games anyone? Lame.

I also think Nintendo was guilty of trying to falsely bolster GC sales by using lame GBA connectivity as a tool.  So many good ideas were touted by never came into fruition because of crap implementation and low cross users.  Double Lame.

SSBM was a good launch game.

On that note...why does SSBM always cost 30 bucks...some friends wanted to get it now, and it's still 30 bucks.  The Player's Choice games cost 20 bucks, but the most deserving game to be Player's Choice, SSBM still isn't, and still costs 30 bucks...lame.  But I suppose it is worth it.

Are those for this year so far or for each systems first 4 months of it's launch?

the latter.  *reads thread title*

When comparing PS2 to PS3, you should remember that PS2 had supply issues. Unlike PS3. You can of course compare launch numbers between any console, but for every console situatiation is diffent. PS2 propably gained from Dreamcasts early launh. People were still waiting for what the generations consoles have to offer. Dreamcast was really no diffent from PS2 (DC only had online play), but Nintendos powerhouse was yet to come. Until Microsoft announced Xbox, the new powerhouse. Both of them was too far away to wait and since DC and PS2 had already showed what will be seen in 6th gen, M$ and Nintendo could not offer anything really new (6th gen= 4 exactly the same consoles). Sony had the brand and 3rd parties and Sega hadnt enough fanboys to keep up. And PSX, it was new and unproven. Did not bring anything new for gaming, but it was marketed in clever way. Sega was first in market, but release of 32X for Megadrive just before Saturn launch, made fanboys angry and buy the PSX. Nintendo was too far behind, but it had something new to offer. Until competitors copied it. Expensive development costs and expensive media made 3rd parties turn to Sony and Sega and finally games for PSX were 20% cheaper than N64 games. Now PS3 does not benefit from the early launch (unlike PSX and PS2), Sony brand has taken damage from its rootkit (the rootkit was there, because most of the people doest even know, what rootkit is), PlayStation brand took damage from PS2s, which many of them broke, Nintendo gained some brand with DS and the PSPs success compared to DS, will not help this fifth PS to succeed either. Now, compared to GC, PS3 has few disadvantages if the 3rd party is leaving (which it looks like at the moment), GC had strong 1st party support (of course Sony pressed the panic button, by announcing that it will expand its 1st party, but this is going to take about 2 yrs) and the price, when Nintendo pressed the panic button, it lowered GCs price massively. Sony cant do this for PS3 being so expensive to manufacture. Compared Wii to PS3, you can either buy PS3 with no games or Wii with 6 games (Wii sports not counted) for the same amount of money. If you buy a console for gaming, which will you choose? Nintendo will also have a free online, unlike Sony (well Sony has free for 1st party, but not the 3rd party if they want to charge you). Nintedo also has Virtual Console where you can find hits beyond 20 years, which Sonys and M$s services cant compete. And Wii offers you something new, unlike 360 and PS3. And for the 360? M$ does not have a line for their console, they are trying to compete with Sony about what you can do with the console and forget (just like Sony) all the gamers, but 360 is much more cheaper (a players choise from those 2).

Tbh this graph just shows that its way too early to tell who is gonna win, if i was guessing from that graph i would say xbox won the last gen and gamecube wasnt far behind :P

its interesting to compare them, but it really tells us nothing about how it will turn out in the end 

On Itrackr:

Wii National Availability: 3%

PS3 20GB National Availability: 1%

PS3 60GB National Availability: 94%

XBOX 360 Premium National Availability: 78%

Nintendo DS Lite - Coral Pink National Availability: 26%

Nintendo DS Lite - Onyx Black National Availability: 26%

Nintendo DS Lite - Polar White National Availability: 34%

Can't the PSP on Itrackr

I believe that N64 sold more the Wii in the same period. It really proves that the first 4 months does not show how the rest of the console sales will be. I really believed that GC would blow away the Xbox total sales but it really didn't.

So are a lot of other GC games.  I went to buy Mario Kart DD the other day and its still $30 (along with others though I didn't pay much attention to what they were).  Of course it's not over 5 years old (more like 3) but I think it's ridiculous to be charging $30 for all but the newest GC games.  Anything more than a year old should be $15-20.

On the purpose of this thread, the first 4 months only mean much when compared to the next 4 months and the 4 months after and so on.  In August we can start making minimally accurate guestimates.  Until then the Wii rocks, the PS3 doesn't, and the 360 just can't manage to take off.