I understand that this week was depressive in the sense that sales of almost everything were down, but is it really bad or unexpected for that to happen during the dry month of July? The only thing that seems to be maintaining its sales strength are the recent Wii multiplat games oddly.

albionus, I really have no clue or comment if the market is supposed to be so crappy right now.

The Wii is selling (software wise), the worst, or near worst since before Wii Play, and likewise for the X360. The main reason I'm shocked at the drought is that every single major title, from the X360 software that was doing good (Forza 2, Guitar Hero 2, Fight Night 3, ect), Wii (MP8, SPM), DS (Pokemon D/P), and everything else was having very small as-expected drops, then totally died real quick. So everything's doing pretty bad. It's been awhile since the 3 consoles didn't sell near 1m software combined.

Also, yes, I was just talking about the US/NA, and not Japan. Thats why its so odd - even without DQS, every system is doing quite well, aside from software tier ratios for the PS3/Wii. It's not like in the US, theres not enough great software to go around. Maybe people are just saving up for the huge list of games coming this week?

i own a 360. i was only expressing my opinion. i was not, by any means trying to a troll

I'm not sure about the summer drought bit. I was always under the impression that sales dropped off around this time of year though I can't really see any trends from previous years on this site since the info is limited. I could very well be mistaken on that.

I would guess if the drop off is unrelated to any natural industry trends that it's caused by two special circumstances. The first is the plethora of new games in June compared to the paucity of new games in July. That would effect overall software sales ratios. A quick count shows 25 new games on the 3 next gen consoles in the 5 week June period started in the top 50. That compares with 2 so far in the first 2 weeks of July. This was the driving force between the sharp jump in software attach rates in June. For the 360 its per 100 software attach rates for May/June/July(monthly) are 24/39/22. For the Wii, taking out Wii Sports and Play, they are 27/57/24. July isn't that much lower than May, it just looks terrible after a mega June for game sales.

That doesn't explain title specific drop offs of course. That I think is caused by the systems being in their first years. I have no hard evidence but it would seem that since consoles are primarily owned at this point by people who are either A) very hard core, and/or B) without many games or new games from which to choose, that sales would be more front loaded than normal. I checked the average decline of 5 games (SPM, MP8, Forza2, RE4, and Dirt, GH2 was included but the supply shortages ruined the data although it is trending almost exactly like SPM) and it seems the declines are Week 2- 50% (45-60), 3- 40% (30-45), 4&up- roughly 25% (15-35) unless/until it levels out or some outside event causes a sales resurgence.

Tying in cause 1, most of the games on your list fall in 2-7 weeks LTD due to the huge month we had in June, so most of those games are right in the heart of the "was doing well last week but now falling noticeably fast" part of their sales curves. With the exception of the already noted oddball GH2, the rest, especially the Japanese sales, are small enough that I would think the margin of error precludes any definitive conclusions about smallish sales trends (ie 0-20%). Without any new games to light up the charts and with everyone who wanted those games buying them quickly (again either because they buy every game or they just need anything to play) the normal counterbalance that more or less hides those declines is absent.

BTW, I know using only 5 games reduces the accuracy of my analysis but it's all I could do on short notice. One of these days I'll have to look at a much larger and more representative selection of games to see what the sales declines tend to be for different types of games. I'm surprised at how smooth and similar the curves for those 5 games are, though they are somewhat similar being major titles for their system. So they may not exactly sync up with the games on your list.

Well, the games I was tracking to state that sales are down aren't the major June releases.

Take Fight Night Round 3, Rainbow Six Vegas, and GRAW2 for X360, just as quickies. In May/June, they constantly did 10k+, and mostly hovered around 13k or so, and stayed there (check my old charts), and now they've all dropped 20% for the past 2 weeks straight. Again, looking at my old charts, the drops weren't across the board in the US like they have been for the past 2 weeks. Japan? Yeah, they drop across the board, depending on hardware sales, but the US is far more consistant until 2 weeks ago. Yes, the drought of new games is effecting it, but I still think the drops the other top-10 is pretty major.

Having said that though, the other games in the top 11-20 are doing quite well, actually.

I think the anticipation of a price drop or special bundle had some people waiting. Now that everyone knows a Price Drop for the 360 is far away, there should be a decent bump from last week in Hardware and software sales. I know people who have decided to purchase an Xbox 360 now that they know the price will remain the same for at least a few more months.

I also think the release of the Sports games & guys heading to college could impact sales. I expect to see tons of people sporting NCAA 2008 very soon.

Myself, I'll likely buy a second Xbox 360 this year if the prices drop low enough.

Considering NCAA 07 did 260,000 copies first week, the 360 should have a gangbuster week this week....NCAA 08 could do 300k+ first week and APF could do 75-100k. That'd be 400k alone in new releases.