Here are the numbers for the 1st week of Madden 08 where I work, for all systems. These numbers should be seen as tiny sample,  and not a representation of sales for the week nationally. I am very interested in seeing how well the numbers from my store reflect the overall trend. 

                                  # in stock       # sold      # on order  # total

P S3                               41                  12             0                53

360                                109                34             0               153

Wii                                   0                   9              14               23

Xbox                                9                  12              0                21

GC                                    4                  1               0                 5

DS                                    1                   1               0                 2

Psp                                  6                    2              0                  8

Ps2                                 121                 34            0                  155

My take on the results from the store:

Microsoft did very well here. Not only is the 360 version in a dead heat with the last gen winner, 109 copies in stock is a huge vote of confidence from the store. Think of the total number of copies as the current faith that the company has in its ability to sell that version. We would not have gotten that many in without a reason.

 Sony sales were also decent here as well. The ps2 version is still selling very strongly. While the store has little faith in handheld Madden overall, it seems to think it can sell more Psp versions in the end. 30 fps issues aside, the Ps3 also did well I think. It sold more than the Wii, and we have a supply in the back. I think the company sees potential in the ps3 sales here, but does not see enough of a reason to invest upwards of a hundred copies.

 Nintendo's sales at my store were more of a mixed bag. True, we sold through our run of Wii copies. Then again, relatively few were ordered in the first place. We recieved almost as many Gc copies as Wii copies. The reorder was placed faster than usual, and we will get more in next week most likely. I feel the company does not currently see a long term sale rate worth keeping around many copies.  And just becuase we sold out it should not been seen that the Wii version sales are being hampered by limited supply. I bet that if I looked in town there are several places that would have it easily. As much as I love to hear about Wii related success, this years' Madden will likely be far more profitable for the 360 and Ps2 (Very likely the Ps3 as well). Even the Wii can't win them all.

Thanks for the info, I find this very interesting :) If you can post similar numbers for other (major?) releases in your store - that would be great.

Why were so few Wii copies ordered in the first place? Only having 9 copies, when you have 150+ for the 360 & 150+ for the PS2... just seems wrong to me. Reasoning would dictate it should have been at least 30, maybe even 50.

And why only 14 on order? I hope these units don't sell out in a day or two once they arrive - and you need to re-order units again.

yeah i agree, if you could do this for all the major titles it'd be awesome. Interesting to see the PS2 still going so strong. Mind you, the PS3 was matched by the original xbox, NOT COOL

@Shams

I'll see what numbers I can get. As for why so long on the Wii orders, I don't know. I can only assume that the company decided that there wasn't enough long term sales to keep them on hand. It is also possible initial demand was under estimated. Reordering fourteen is actually kinda high. Res Evil 4 often only gets batches of 8, but it keeps selling out. I think it just sold out for the third time here. STill, 14 isn't a huge amount.

@ Starcraft
Think of how I feel- The original xbox outsold the Wii version here.

I'm gonna take a nap, but go ahead a post questions and I will answer them later.

Very interesting post .

I really wonder how many Wii copies would have sold if you had more in stock. Any idea about people waiting for it to come back in?

Since Wii has sold through there isn't any real conclusions we can draw from it's sales except that at least 9 people want it.

It seems pretty bizarre that your store would order an initial stock of 53 PS3 units and only 9 Wii considering Madden 07 sold similiar numbers on each system(0.39-Wii, 0.42-PS3) and Wii now has a user base around 2.5 times that of PS3 in the US. I say again, bizarre!

It's a little different at my store. I work for a major retail chain also.

As of now, the PS2 version is dominant. We keep running out of it, but luckily we get resupplied pretty fast. I can't give actual numbers, but it's something like this...

PS2
360
Wii
PSP
Xbox
PS3
GC
DS

Point of note, that we've sold double the number of Wii Madden as PS3 and strangely enough we've sold a lot of PSP Madden. Probably depends on the area you're in, but I don't think any versions are doing all that bad except maybe the DS version. We haven't sold one copy since launch day. We sold out of our inital GC copies (which weren't much), but were resupplied on Friday.

I'm sure it's different in other parts of the country, but I think it depends on where you're at as to what kind of sell through you'll have. Pretty strange that they'd send more PS3 copies to your store instead of Wii ones. We sell out of Wii sports games pretty fast at my store.

@Katillian

How many copies would have sold is perhaps a bit moot. There are at least a dozen other possible outlets in town for the game, so if anyone really wanted it they should have it. I have not received any personal requests for the game, but I work odd hours.

@ Biggerboat

That is exactly the point that needs to be emphasized. Wii sells hit their celling here so there is no way of knowing anything other than the limit was reached. As to why so few were ordered, that is up to the guys in corporate. This could be an example of how the Wii can be hard to predict for the higher-ups. We got in 8 copies of Alien Syndrome, and have not sold a single one. 8 copies is a decent number for us to get with most regular titles. To a non-gamer making business calls, 9 copies may have seemed like a crazy big investment after other titles had not sold to expectations. The only Wii games we get really large numbers of 40-50 ish are ones with "Nintendo" printed on them.

@ Darkness
Thanks for giving results from your store as well. And yeah, except for the DS version the other seem to be doing fine.

Pretty interesting though as others have said nothing can be drawn from the Wii's sales except that at least 9 people wanted it. That shows demand for the Wii version is at least around the PS3 version but nothing much else.

It seems incredibly stupid to only order 9 Wii copies but 53 PS3 and 153 360 copies but then again whatever manager higher up that made the decision probably has no video game knowledge and just looked at sales of the 07 version at their stores which would be influenced by 07's order ratios that were dependant on the PS2/GCN/Xbox days. Hopefully for them they get it right next year.