Or bioshock2 and dante Inferno?

Uh, there were many big games released close to Heavy Rain. God of War 3 and Final Fantasy XIII for example, but also other games like Battlefield Bad Company 2 or Bioshock 2. Alan Wake only had RDR as a real enemy, so his comment was absolutly correct.

Correct? There's a difference between releasing around stuff and releasing the exact same day as another game. By your logic, every game releasing in the holiday season should struggle because "it's releasing near so many other games!" Some of you guys need to get real.

So "releasing close" now means on the same day or at least the same week? Seriously, you are the one who needs to get real. Let me explain. Let's say there would only be 2 big games in the holiday season... don't you think these 2 games would sell much worse if there were 5-6 big games? Just think about it, not everyone buys 5-6 games within 2-3 months.

Look at what happened when everyone started avoiding MW2. Games that stayed in their release window (Borderlands, L4D2, ACII, DA:O) still sold well and MW2 still broke records.

Now image there would have been no L4D2, no Borderlands and no DA:O. MW2 would have sold even more if the only competitor had been ACII.

Yep these things happen, but I think it isn't just people who were wrong that got quite the forums are really slow these days.

IMO, there's no difference between games releasing on the same day or within a couple weeks.  My rationale is that nobody plays a game for just ONE day.  So for example, whether HR was released on the same day as FFXIII or a week later has the same negative impact on HR's sales.  Why?  Because if I'm playing FFXIII at the moment, I'm playing it for the next month probably.  So any game released in that timeframe I'm not going to buy on day 1.   LIkewise with RDR and AW.  Even if AW was released a couple weeks after RDR, I'm still not getting it day 1 because I'm still playing RDR at that time.  Again, that's just my opinion.  

Alan Wake did badly simply because Xbox owners didn't want it.

I wish they'd be able to bring it to the PS3, i'd love it, and i think a lot of other PS3 owners would like that kind of game too.

The Game was overhyped to the bone, No Multiplayer. People Expected it to Be the "uncharted 2" For Xbox360. It Just Wasn't. and IMO the game was fairly mediocre.