Oops got cut off.

These are the current world sales and market share % up until now. Each future week that follows on the sheet (numbers are in blue) calculates the previous seven weeks sales averages for the entire world. This sheet is trying to predict and chart what sales will trend like based on the previous sales. Seven weeks into the future this sheet is averaging the averages, no weeks are exactly the same. So IF sales average exactly like the previous seven weeks then this sheet will show what the sales and market share will be.

Once November hits I used an average of historical % increases that past systems have had and applied them to calculate the sales for November and December. The same formula applies to all three systems.

These numbers are close to a lot of people’s predictions, and I feel they will be one of the closest ones out there.

does anyone think that halo 3 will push xbox 360 hardware sales?? and if so give an estimate on how much?? in my opinion i only see the halo 3 pushing a few thousand units...

I would say the numbers look good until August/September...

But Metroid, Halo 3, Madden, are all going to provide big boosts for all three platforms in the USA.  As will GTA in October when it is released.  I actually think October for PS3 could be almost as big as November, and that 360 is going to sell similar amounts from Sept-Nov because of Halo 3, then GTA, then increasing demand from the holidays.

Wii is hardest to predict because if Nintendo is already producing 1.5 million units/month, then they stockpiling one hell of a lot of units.  Super Mario Galaxy could be huge, as could Wii Music, and Brawl..

Looking at last year, I would say Gears of War can move at least 1.5x to 2x as many units (360 did 1.1 million in the USA in December) as Halo 3.  Gears of War has yet to reach 5 million units sold...while Halo 2 continues to outsell most current gen games and has sales approaching 8 million. 

So I would say your numbers are may a touch low on 360 (15 million sold at least I think), too low on PS3 - I'm expecting sales of 6-9 million remember it hasn't had a Christmas in Europe to extrapolate from as Wii and 360 have, and right on the money for what I think Wii will do.  However, if Nintendo only tries to meet their projections (14 million sold by March 2008), then they may only get to 16-17 million worldwide by the end of 2007. 

If you look at <a href="http://www.vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=America&cons2=GC&reg2=America&cons3=XB&reg3=America&weekly=1">this chart</a> you'll notice that the large spikes are sales boosts in November/December for Christmas. Beyond holiday spikes many/most of the large shifts upward in the lines represent price-cuts of hardware or hardware finally becoming readily avaialbe. Most game releases are represented by the small bumpy "noise" in the graph; some games represent spikes but not that many.

The reason for this is that a game release is factored into the sales of systems months before and after the game is released; many people who are interested in Halo bought the system with Gears of War, others will have bought it with Forza 2, and even more will buy it with GTA.

Overall, I would not expect a dramatic shift in the performance of any systems because of the release of a handful of games.

ok happysqurriel u made a solid point, then why do people say that "halo is gonna push units???" why??

People say that because it will. Rarely does ONE game make a noticable impact on the weekly graph when it releases. But that game, when factored into peoples' purchasing decisions within a three month timespan around that game's launch, has a very large impact.

Will we see 360 sales spike by 100k the week Halo comes out? No, not likely. But starting a few weeks before the game launches and into January 2008, expect the 360 to chart higher than it did holiday 2006. That's mainly due to Halo and GTA. It's basically impossible to decipher which one had more impact but it doesn't really matter. You know that both games contributed.

Honestly, I have no idea why. I've been pointing out the same as HappySqurriel for a while now.

When you look at weekly sales, you do see some spikes amidst the volatility that coincide with game releases. But looking at cumulative sales, you can never discern any game releases (except perhaps when the system is selling poorly, as was the case with the 360 in Japan and Blue Dragon).

The only noticeable features of LTD graphs are (by order of importance): holidays; regional launches or increased availability; and finally pricedrops or hardware revisions.

Well, Halo will almost certainly push *some* units. Just like there are different markets for Starcraft and Command and Conquer (just as examples), there are different people that will buy Halo than Gears of War. Thats not to say there's not some overlap - the number of people who play(ed) both SC and C&C is certainly huge - but at the same time, no single game will appease to everyone. I know 2 people who loved Gears of War but were not that impressed by Halo 2, and are on the fence about getting Halo 3 (at least one of them probably will get it IMO, but the other one not so much).

So while there is certainly some overlap, there is in no way 100% overlap in people who would buy a system for GoW and who would buy a system for Halo 3. (Then again, my sample set is skewed as both already have the 360, but I think the point remains valid)