Soul Calibur is releasing at the end of July and that will definately carryover to August, we have Madden NFL coming out August 12th and Mercenaries 2 coming out at the end of August as well. So it should be quite a decent month for Multi-platform releases.

On the exclusive front we have two pretty good RPG exclusives coming - Tales of Vesperia and Too Human, which should help kick-off Microsofts RPG push towards the end of the year.

It will be interesting to see how well both games get reviewed and their sales should help telegraph the impact of future exclusives/multiplatforms such as Fable 2 and Last Remnant/FFXIII and we should be able to see if Microsofts targeting of the RPG genre this year is going to pay off for them in terms of software/hardware sales or if it looks like it will fall flat.

The sales of the Two RPGs should indicate somewhat whether Microsoft is having any success in attracting RPG fans to the consoles - so the relative sales of these two games and any changes to the rate of hardware sales should also indicate whether or not they are being successful at drawing new untapped market segments to the Xbox360.

I didn't forget - I just hate GOLF!!!

But yea - The sales of these games should tell us whether Microsoft invested their money wisely in regards to FFXIII - Last Remnant - Tales of Vesperia - Fable 2 - Lost Odyssey etc.

The RPGs are coming, but the real question in... Will they sell? Furthermore and more importantly, will they sell MORE consoles?

fable will sell, LO is doing well, vesperia will bomb, last remnant will live or die by its demo if it gets one.

Erm...

Too Human is going to bomb.

August will be Madden's month. And because the PS3 version runs at 60fps and won't be broken this year, it'll be a muted effect.

We'll see what tales does.

August and September should be solid months for the platform. Key months for each platform more than any will be Oct-Dec this year. October will be a very key month leading into the holiday season. As it looks right now checking various retail sources LBP and Fable 2 could land on the same day and this could lend to the ever growing diversity and choice for gamers before the holidays cranks into high gear. Gamers will most certainly have choices this fall. The other key component will be if we see any real price drops before Black Friday. I’m not so sure we will with Sony, but we will probably see some kind of pack-in. The 360 will most likely see some kind of cut across the board imho. Anything can happen however and it should be another blockbuster season as Gears and R2 head off the big titles before Christmas.

Theres no doubting that the Holiday season months are bigger, but the real question for me is - Can the Xbox360 break into new markets or will it stagnate at its current level of sales? Broadening its appeal would help increase sales above and beyond the effects of price cuts.

yeah it does look like a good month for 360

The fire sale is only going to help this continue through August and Sept. Games like, Tales, IU in September and later on LR can only help to diversify the platform for those interested in such genres. Will there be huge jumps from last year, no, Sept was a huge month for the 360 last year due to Halo 3, but it does have some pretty solid exclusives that are very much different than your normal shoot em up as well. Also remember the 360 saw a price cut right before Madden last year as well as Bioshock for the month. It may not be as strong through these two months, but they should still be solid showings overall.

YES!!! Madden Holiday is almost upon us!

http://www.maddenholiday.com/

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i can't believe it has almost been a year since halo 3 came out.
I disagree with the entire thread though.

Even if Microsoft is "falling" it will be hard to notice with the price cut/cuts, Madden, and all of these RPG's.

We won't know if the 360 is a failure until next year if Microsoft can somehow keep their head above water. And with all these games, I think they will barely be able to do it.