I don't think bundling F3 affected GT5 sales. Maybe console sales, but not GT5 game sales.

Also, Golden Week? GT5 was launched in the Japanese Holiday period, a month earlier then GT4. It's sold for more high profile weeks then GT4, and still behind.

There are many factors to why GT5 isn't selling so well now, and I don't think FM4 will affect GT5 sales, I mean GT5 didn't affect FM3 sales.

Wii and 360 tend to be significantly more popular in the Americas region, and in this region holiday sales are noticably more impactful. In 2010 360 was outselling PS3 3:2 in the holiday season, which was largely due to Kinect. Also Ms tends to have a strong holiday lineup. Gears of War 3 and Forza Motorsport 4 might not be too much, but those are both 5 million plus selling games, and add in some unique Kinect software ,such as Codename D, Prject Draco, Steel Batallion, Gears of War Exile, Rise of Rightmares and Wipeout, and we should expect 360 to have a very strong holiday season.

Nintendo doesn't have as much software, but Zelda, Pikmin, XenoBlades, Tales of Graces, and likely another Just Dance should be enough to hold strong sales, especially for fall. I mean last few falls the Wii has had a few close to 2 million weeks.

PS3 should stay #1 for at least until E3. However, I said the exact same thing a month back about 360 being #1 till E3. So who knows, but I think PS3 will hold first until E3. The important question is will fall 360 sales be enough to match PS3's yearly sales, or will PS3 slowly catch up overall? Every year we always see a dramatic shift, 2010 saw a small boost from Kinect, 2009 saw a major boost from Slim and 2008 saw a small boost from a 360 price cut. Who knows what will happen in 2011.

I agree about 3DS, I guess Nintendo only meant to say 4 million shipped to retailers by April 2011, which did happen.

As for DS, I was a little disappointed with Picross 3D, the older Picross DS is better IMO. I tend to play a lot of casual games on my DS too, and like you I missed out on Mario Kart. Gameboy Advance and Gameboy were better for the hardcore, like I said before. I mean I almost exclusively played RPG's and strategy games on the GBA, but on DS I've gone more casual. The big games for me were the Pokemons, Metroid Prime Pinball, Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Picross DS, Brain Age, and Starfox.

As for the 3DS, I'm not too crazy about the software like you. To me it looks like a lot of N64 ports, and some downgraded console HD games. I bet they will be fun, but I need more then Mario Kart and Kid Icarus to sell it to me. However, a lot of the software looks like it will be out by this fall, so I expect the 3DS to have a strong fall, even at its $250 price point.

It's nice to hear from you, you always give an opinion, not just a biased two comment point, and you always observe gaming from your perspective, and never claim your perspective is the truth. i.e. Your future predictions, and likes are what you feel, and you never say it as if the world will conform to youre views. A lot of people on this website are just too into game sales, tend to have a biased view of the market, and never get into their own opinion.

I'd say console sales may have been affected more, I partially agree with you, but also the games sales for a simple reason: shelf space and visibility during BF. Whatever else XB360 bundle during that period would have affected a lot more console sales an minimally GT5 sales, but two big racing games events at the same time, a partial clash must have happened. GT5 was new, just released, but F3 was on the HD console preferred by Americans, and thanks to the bundle it got wide shelf space, almost like a new big game.

About GW, I guess we'll know for sure quite soon.

About the many factors affecting GT5, I agree in principle (although it's possible we give different importance to different factors), I already have in my mind some little corrections and additions I'd like if I had a PS3 (as if I had one, I'd surely buy GT5, but having a PC I'm actually torn between buying rFactor or waiting for rFactor 2, but right now I got enough racers to play).

You make my day with those commentaries.

Yeah I see PS3 staying #1 until E3 as well.(With the exception of discount weeks like apparently the Wii is having.) I think that yearly sales will come down to what is shown at E3 to be honest. All 3 are so close in sales and it will all depend on the games, and when each get a Price Cut.(All 3 should get 1 in 2011) As of now the 360 is stong in America but its sales place(#1, #2 or #3) will depend of how strong it will get in America. We all know that its unnoticed in Japan and isn't doing to well in Others either. Like you said though America has the strongest impact during the Holiday period. As for Wii I don't really know if it can come back in Japan or Others. In Japan it seems that no matter what Nintendo puts out it does next to nothing for Wii sales there. They have seemed to officially moved on to the PS3. I expect Wii to still see a decent Holiday in Japan and outsell the PS3 but for all of 2011 I think PS3 wins. Others also seems to have moved on to PS3 at least for the moment but with the constant stream of PS3 games coming PS3 may stay high there until the Holidays when Wii again should overtake it. PS3 should still win in yearly sales in Others. In America the Wii should be fine though. When games start releasing again the sales will be high and with a Price Cut should remain high. Again, I think 2011 will depend on what is announced at E3.

I never played the 1st Picross...I did enjoy Picross 3D though. With the 3DS I actually don't mind the remakes too much. I probably won't buy Zelda OOT 3D, but Starfox 64 3D looks nice especially since StarFox 64 is the only Starfox game I have ever liked a lot. I am a big fan of Resident Evil, Paper Mario, and Animal Crossing so I am happy with the current planned line-up. Plus I really enjoy 3D so thats an added benefit. I did hear a rumor however that said Animal Corssing 3D wasn't a real game and was just a tech demo...that would suck LOL. Also, do you have a 3DS yet?

By the way, yeah you are easily the best person to have a conversation with on this site. Nearly every other person I have a conversation with tells me to shut up and that I am wrong LOL.

Why would PS3 owners care about Forza Motorsport 3? Wouldn't FM3 being plastered on 360 console boxes, promote GT5 sales? Do you have any evidence to back up your claim about FM3 bundling hurting GT5 sales, or is this pure opinion? In my opinion, I would think having FM3 logos everywhere encourage PS3 owners to get their console's exclusive racing simulator. After all GT5 has a name too.

For home consoles PS3 will always be ontop in Japan. Wii is old software, and PS3 gets a lot more Japanese exclusives. 360 and Wii sales also jump more then PS3 in Others as well, just during the holidays Americas explode!

For regional sales, Wii held slightly more sales compared to PS3 in EMEAA and 360 in Americas. It's likely this year that PS3 takes the home console lead for EMEAA, and 360 takes the lead for Americas. Overall Wii should still be above PS3 and 360 because it's numbers won't be that far behind each leading console in the two larger regions. However only time will tell, Zelda is a pretty large franchise, I could see this pushing significant sales, especially if the Wii came with a Zelda Wii bundle like it did with NSMB Wii.

Starfox Command for the DS is pretty good too, not as good as the original, but a lot of the game mechanics remain unaltered.

I'm not getting a 3DS. $250 is too much for a handheld system for me, and I'm very backlogged on a lot of great DS titles I still want to beat. I almost never play handheld games outside the house, so I'd rather save moey for a next gen console. I'm more interested in the Sony Xveria Play as my phone replacement and installing a GBA and SNES emulator, and getting some Playstation software.

Also the reason why the 3DS line-up bugs me, is because I don't feel Nintendo will add too much more too it, and so far it's all old franchises with new installments. I want new IP's, Mario Kart is just a hardware upgrade to me now, and N64 remakes don't appeal to me too much. Kid Icarus is the only game that look interesting to me, and that's 1 game.

From my experience with Nintendo, whatever games they announce when the console is released, and claim "launch window" is what we see for 2-3 years after the console is launched, and tends to be the bulk of the console's library. For Wii this is 100% true, Mario Kart, Super Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros, Zelda, and Metroid Prime 3 were the first wave of 1st party software, and for the large part, they are still the only really great Wi games. Since that initial wave, all I gt was MadWorld, Fire Emblem, and Donkey Kong. Gamecube did something similar with Eternal Darkness, Pikmin, Smash Bros, Metroid Prime, Animal Crossing, etc. Sony does this too, I mean we only recently saw Gran Turismo 5, which was announced the time the PS3 was launched, but they at least added a bunc of other games since launch.

It's just, I want something new from Nintendo. With the Wii all I got were new installments to old classic titles, and for handheld games I am really annoyed that only about half of the Fire Emblem games are localized. With the 3DS, I don't see anything new, so why am I in a rush to get one?

BTW you are wrong... There is no such thing as a 3DS, what are you talking about? Japan blew up with that Nucear meltdown. Sony is only still around because headquarters are in USA. OH NO the Microsoft drones are harvesting people in my neighbourhood again, gotta go...LOL

The biggest possible damage can be from undecided buyers liking racers and not owning any console yet this gen, some of them, finding both consoles and both games heavily advertised, and F3 bundled with 360, and maybe considering that more friends of theirs owned a 360, could have chosen F3 bundle, with the bundle itself becoming the decisive argument to reject the temptation to buy PS3 and GT5 instead. A small part of possible damage could come from people not fully persuaded yet  and just being distracted by the competitor's advertising. Oh, yes, this is my opinion. I got also another theory, just an opinion anyway:  MS could have had no intention at all to damage GT5, but just to exploit the marketing of its launch, attracting people to stores, just to find that there were two big racers filling the shelves.

This said, Sony and PD should, IMVHO, make some little improvements, maybe when they release the next special edition: make the most hardcore gamers happy giving the option to have the most realistic damage model since the start instead of after leveling up, add some tracks and cars appealing for American tastes, do the same for Japanese tastes,  and finally upgrade a good selection of cars from Standard to Premium, and please, avoid adding or upgrading any other Nissan Skyline, just because PD devs have clearly a fetish for it doesn't imply that anybody else must have it!!!   

All opinion, we can't really tell if the FM3 bundle hurt or helped GT5's sales. There are reasons for both.

Also the Forza Motorsport 3 bundle only composed of 1 million 360's (Forza 3's sale jumped 1.3 million from before te bundle to its end, and at least 300k should have been due to the Ultimate Edition FM3 and the 4 month period of sales). So no matter what this didn't affect GT5 sales that much. I'm sure most people who bought this bundle were planing on getting a 360 anyway.

However I'll agree with you on your second theory. By bundling FM3 during GT5's launch, it probably helped give Forza a name for itself.

PD and Nissan actually have a very long relationship with each other, so no matter what you're going to see a lot of Nissans in the game because Nissan uses the game to promote their vehicles, and both PD and Nissa are Japanese. PD won't sell out to non-Japanese dealers.

As for improvements, what do you mean adding tracks more suited for Japanese and American tastes? GT5 has basically all the tracks older GT's have had, and they all sold fine in Americas and Japan. IMO Trail Mountain is the best fictional track ever made, and Tsuba (that tiny one) is the most famous Japanese race track.

However I agree with you about including damage from the start, and upgrading more cars from Standard to Prenium. Damage should be adjustable like in Forza, and 200 prenium cars is just nowhere nearly enough. I only race in car view so that last on really bugs me, but at least some of my favorite cars have in car view, and rear in car view too.

I hope FM4 gets rear in car view...

All opinion, we can't really tell if the FM3 bundle hurt or helped GT5's sales. There are reasons for both.

Also the Forza Motorsport 3 bundle only composed of 1 million 360's (Forza 3's sale jumped 1.3 million from before te bundle to its end, and at least 300k should have been due to the Ultimate Edition FM3 and the 4 month period of sales). So no matter what this didn't affect GT5 sales that much. I'm sure most people who bought this bundle were planing on getting a 360 anyway.

However I'll agree with you on your second theory. By bundling FM3 during GT5's launch, it probably helped give Forza a name for itself.

PD and Nissan actually have a very long relationship with each other, so no matter what you're going to see a lot of Nissans in the game because Nissan uses the game to promote their vehicles, and both PD and Nissa are Japanese. PD won't sell out to non-Japanese dealers.

As for improvements, what do you mean adding tracks more suited for Japanese and American tastes? GT5 has basically all the tracks older GT's have had, and they all sold fine in Americas and Japan. IMO Trail Mountain is the best fictional track ever made, and Tsuba (that tiny one) is the most famous Japanese race track.

However I agree with you about including damage from the start, and upgrading more cars from Standard to Prenium. Damage should be adjustable like in Forza, and 200 prenium cars is just nowhere nearly enough. I only race in car view so that last on really bugs me, but at least some of my favorite cars have in car view, and rear in car view too.

I hope FM4 gets rear in car view...