Its probably because of the mass appeal of the current gen is gone.

My oppinion...

Lets not forget 2011 was the best year so far for PS3, XboX360 and their software. So this was actually the year where their mass appeal was at the highest...

What's happening is that since a few years retailers have been trying to start the holydays season early and with the black friday incentives a lot of customers are purchasing their gifts earlier...

True. Specially that crazy Xbox movement on black friday.

Well Xbox might sell 85M when its said and done but this gen is pretty much over... We need new Ips and we are just getting sequels and sequels with a new gen we will get fresh games and ideas and new genres... you know this gen appeal has died, people want more Cod and Casual shit, nothing more. 

are the xbox 360s students got for buying a windows pc included in the vgc numbers? or could this be the reason for microsofts 66m announcement?

and if the numbrs are included, how did vgc calculate them? wasn't the console for free for the students?

and there are many cooperations microsoft did with other companies like getting a 360 for 80€ extra if you recommend a friend a pay-tv subscription here in germany for example. are these consoles included? i mean i would get the console directly from the pay-tv station not sure how vgc will know these numbers.

Those numbers should all be included within the shipped totals for 2011.

Free/promotional, whatever; they still count as units produced and shipped from factories. These are numbers that are actually disclosed by the manufacturers themselves and as such, should be taken as fact, running the basic assumption that none of them are deliberately sending out false information to the stock market.

Whether these also count as "sold" is something you'd have to as Jacob, Bret or any of the guys who actually process the numbers for VGC. 

Core gamers arn't the "mass appeal" you are you referring too, they're the minority.

The truth is that core gamers bought their 360's already, and the wet spots being soaked up now are the Kinect buyers. This would explain the drop in Wii interest too. And its probably also due to residual crossover Ipad / Iphone / Android interest.

Remember that core gamers do not buy consoles under normal conditions, such as for christmas gifts.

The Old Republic sold "over 600k" in Dec.

We have it at over 950k for the 2 Weeks. We have it opening at more than 800k. We had preorders for the game at over 950k units...

Another huge blip in the data.


Also... Not sure if posted yet -

1. Just Dance 3: ~3.5 million
2. Just Dance 2
3. Zumba Fitness
4. Michael Jackson The Experience
5. Mario Kart Wii
6. New Super Mario Bros. Wii
7. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: ~1.2 million
8. Donkey Kong Country Returns
9. Skylanders Spyro's Adventure
10. LEGO Star Wars III: The Saga Continues to Build

What I just posted is the Wii top 10 of 2011 btw, for people who can't tell.

Just Dance 3 is an estimation from a GAF member.

A lack of a "Yearly" chart on VGC sucks arse.

I believe it was confirmed in June's NPD article that at least the 360's from the "Back To School" giveaway were included with NPD's numbers.  Though, I don't think those have any effect on Dec, as the sale was over.