I agree there is nothing like direct word of mouth to effect sales positively or negatively. But isn't blogging, forums a form of word of mouth? especially when the forums or the blogs become information sources for news media?

The old business rule i was taught was that for every happy customer you have you can expect them to tell 3 people. For every disatisfied customer you have you can expect them to tell 10 people. With the power of the internet and resources such as forums and blogs does this style of rule still hold true? Look at the issue from a Chaos theory perspective. If i read a good review on the Wii from IGN because i'm interested in it  and then i buy it based on that review, and then i show 5 of my friends, 3 of which then buy it after seeing mine then follow the chain of events back nd it was the forum or the blog that essentially sold 4 consoles. 1 directly, 3 indirectly. The indirect effect of information sharing on sales is huge IMHO. Much like the chaos theory statement of a butterfly flapping its wings in the amazon causing a typhoon in the pacific.

That movie was good.

Yes and no, yes to those who visit the forums and are hardcore gamers, no to the majority of the public who don't

I think that forums impact the hardcore demographic that some companies are targetting!

Example when Sega was looking for new game idea's they used polls on the Sega boards to descide which direction to go in. I took part in these polls. Example of questions were which Sonic Character would you like to see in their own game Shadow , Tails , Amy or knuckles  the answer was Shadow then later onanother poll question came out would you be objected to Shadow with a gun and should a game based on shadow be a dark experiance. These different Sega polls I feel shaped Shadow:TheHedgeHog considering the polls were put out by Sega of America andso was the game. So obviously Sega feels they do.

Forums have the ability to affect about 200,000-500,000 buyers in my opinion. Why so little because out of the entire gaming industry how many consumers are on online forums talking about games, not that many only the die hard industry lovers. Fanboys/loyalists will always support their brand so forums don't really impact their choice in games. However Loyalists and intellectual gamers can have a profound effect on the casual gaming segment that may come onto a forum. 

Another perfect example would be EarthBound was a sleeper hit in North America not that many gamers bought it but it was loved by any RPG fan at the time. Now a few years later (Decade) you go on any gaming forum and mention EarthBound and you have dozens of people talking about it. On Nintendo.com theirs at least a thousand or more die-hard EarthBound fans and thousands signed the latest Starman petition. More then half the people on N-Sider and other forums have never even played the game they claim the want to buy it so badly they've heard so much about it!

Just like EarthBounds growth in popularity I'm 100% sure that forums impact the hardcore demographic which intern can make or brake the sales of a game. However it cannot create a hit like Halo (4 million copies) or Halo2 those are word of mouth. Forums don't reach that many consumers only the true and die hard gaming audience! 

 LOL.... i blame myspace, i just do.