It's logical to blame the economy, but take a closer look.

Hardware bought in 4 weeks September 2008 (revenue is found by U.S price timed by 1.4 to calculate for Euro vs dollar):

Wii: 1145K - 400M dollars

Ps3: 486K - 238M dollars

X360: 647K - 181M dollars

PsP: 600K - 143M dollars

DS: 1586K - 288M dollars

Ps2: 337K - 47M dollars

Total: 4801K - 1.297B dollars

Last 4 weeks of August:

Wii: 1155K - 404M

Ps3: 576K - 282M

X360: 448K - 125M

PsP: 780K - 186M

DS: 1825K - 332M

Ps2: 397K - 55M

Total: 5181K - 1.384B dollars

So it's less than 10% down month over month for hardware.

What you could have done, is that by looking at those, the last week only shows Others data. Maybe that is where you mixed up.

(And holy crap, people spend almost 4B dollars each quarter, out of christmas, on hardware alone?)

Now, Software

September (same 4 weeks):

Wii: 5.2M - 328M

Ps3: 3.2M - 268.8M

X360: 4.6M - 386.4M

PsP: 1.0M - 42M

DS: 7.1M - 298M

Total: 21.1M - 1.323B

August:

Wii: 5.8M - 365M

Ps3: 2.9M - 244M

X360:  3.9M - 328M

PsP: 1.3M - 54.6M

DS: 6.2M - 260.4M

Total: 20.1M - 1252B

So there was a slightly higher revenue in September for software. And overall, it rules out. The reason revenue is important here, is that it is how much money people spend.

yea markets look pretty crap right now.. oils down to $90 as well.. which might be a good thing.. coz no way in hell is anything above $70-80 good for the economy.sorry middle east but enough construction for now!

There are several forces in play.

This is a naturally slow time of year -- back to school before the holidays.
There is economic uncertainty.
There have not been any big (i.e., Halo 3) September releases.

We will know the strength of explanation No. 2 when we get to January and can look at Christmas/holiday/end of year sales. My guess is that it will be stronger (meaning lower sales) than some people are willing to admit. This might very well be a bad time to have a AAA title coming out -- especially one that looks like a lot of other AAA titles (i.e., FPS).

Mike from Morgantown