While the income difference will have some impact on sales (around 75% of avg. American salary), I think it has a lot to do with consumer preferences. Me and my friends are very selective when it comes to new games and we have no issues with picking an "old" games, instead of the brand new, if we haven't had a chance to play them before and we know for sure they're good. Sometimes it's not even a question of price, like with Nintendo games, which pretty much are never on sale. Saying that, don't forget that games in Europe are more expensive than in US, thanks to higher tax rates. It's not as bad as in Australia, but still.

I don't think the Salary difference has any thing to do with it. Because Salary is one thing , but the social systems like healthcare, pension system etc is much better arranged in most western European (and even with a lot of the southern/eastern European) countries. So overall I think the money people have after tax, healthcare, house cost and pension is not very different from Europe to people from the USA.  I think that most posters here are right when they say: Game prices  are much higher in Europe(at launch) and the average European doesn't really care about the newest game anymore. Next to this, the price drops normally quite fast (only nintendo games seems to keep same price for a few years). So why would you buy a game at full price if you can get it after only a few weeks for much less money?

Ofcourse there are people in Europe aswell who always want to have the newest game on the launch date/time. But I think the big hype of a few years back is over here. (I remember the period of GTA IV, COD MW3 and release of the PS3 and Xbox 360, where many people  in Europe where in a big row at night for the releases. But after this, I've never seen such thing anymore.

Gamestop is what causes the front loading in the US. (Well it's the whole resale market, but Gamestop is the biggest piece.) After the first couple of weeks, most people just buy used games instead of new ones. That makes sales front loaded. Then publishers drop the price to compensate. This happens more with single player games, which is why lots of companies are pushing more for multiplayer games and digital games and so on. All of that is supposed to circumvent the resale market.

From what I can tell, Europe doesn't have the robust market for used games that the US has. Does Europe really have the equivalent of Gamestop? If so, then it's not in every country.

Not one that operates throughout Europe as far as I’m aware. Gamestop itself also isn’t active in The Netherlands. We have our own gamestore chain, which does also sell used copies though.

Europe isn't a big, unified market. EU is supposed to be, but really it's almost as impactful as UN, by which I mean not by a longshot.

There are used game stores in almost every city counting more than a few thousands inhabitants here in Belgium, but it doesn't need to be managed by a single multinational corporation.

Is this wishful thinking, or are there any facts tied to this? Also, I get the feeling you are from Europe?

But it all matters. European salaries are lower because they have to pay much higher taxes. Games cost more because of import taxes and VAT. Whether how much social services the government offers doesn't really move the needle on game buying lol.

In the US, people are more into videogames... that's it basically.
They follow the industry more, they watch more trailers, they follow more news on the internet, and hype for the release is bigger. That's why they usually have better launch, but worse legs.
And the same is for Japan. Even more i would say, in Japan a game some times sells 70/80% of the lifetime sales the first week.
Many European don't even know what to buy, they are just like "i have 40€ to spend, let's see what i can buy at gamestop".

Of course this also depend on the games, but usually that's it.

As a cheap Dutch-guy I always buy my games either: day-one with a price-mistake ( The game originally 55 euro's sold between 0 and 30 euro. I've gotten games for free before, day one). Or I buy it when it's cheap, later on ( 0% to 30% of its original price ).

(Answering both of you.)

I do wonder what the concentration of used game stores in Europe is, because where I am they are everywhere.  I like in a city with a greater metropolitan area of about 530k.  We have 7 Gamestops and a similar number of small businesses that sell used games.  That is about one used game store for every 38k people.  (I am excluding pawn shops and thrift stores which usually only have a handful of games each.)  This seems like a lot to me, but perhaps it is that way everywhere?

(We also used to have even more Gamestops than this but a couple of them closed down recently.)