I agree with you that MGS4 sold on the strength of the existing fanbase. A couple of 10 reviews from the big game reviewers probably helped a little too. That said bundles also played at least a part, because it certainly seemed like the sales rose and fell with the availability of the bundles, and any legs the game have went away when the bundles did.

It looks like there are starting to be a couple of votes in the poll. God of War has the most, by 1, and I agree with that. It is a successful franchise, but not near as big as some people think. Surprises that a few people think GT 5 is the next closest, because that certainly seems to high of a prediction to me. FF XIII being the only one with no votes seems right, the prediction from the numbers is way too high.

It's very interesting looking at the PS3 last gen and current gen sales.

It is obvious the core playstation fanbase is very small and very dedicated, which explains why MGS4 sold so well despite an 80% reduction in install base.

Most of PS2's audience, surprise, were casual gamers (god i hate that term) and sales of the more family friendly games have suffered greatly.

@ph4nt

I think you are right, I'm not a fan of the core/casual terms either, but that does seem to be what has happened to the franchises. We have MGS4 with only a very small decline in sales, whereas Hot Shots Golf, which had been a decent size franchise, especially in Japan, saw a huge decrease in sales and is a much more "casual" game. I think that is more evidence that God of War 3 will be able to perform similarly to the PS2 games. But as far as GT 5 I"m not so sure. I think that could be considered kind of a "bridge" title, that both core and casual gamers were interested in. It will be interesting to see.

@ Lester

I agree with your take on the poll results, although as I write this GT 5 now has one more vote than God of War III. I would love to get some people who are voting for GT 5, to express their view why they think those sales will be closest.

I just checked the results for the "why have you not commented" poll, and see that 4 people have now voted because the chart is too hard to follow. I actually added that choice to the poll before I reformatted the original 2 posts, and was not expecting to really get that as a response. I really tried to make the first post user friendly, but is that one still confusing? Or is it just the second post with all the games in it? Is it just that the table is too long now and and hard to scroll through? If that's the case I guess I could spread the chart throughout my posts in this thread, and just put an index there on the front page where each system is at. Would that help? Or maybe the problem is the format of the chart itself, if that's the case I would really appreciate some feedback on what I could do to improve it. Thanks!

I take it that Twilight Princess wasn't included because it did not really belong to either the Gamecube or the Wii?

That could potentially be another strong point in the Wii comparison.

Look! Twilight princess sold 4 times as much as the Gamecube version did!

But, it really shouldn't be applicable since the Wii version, if i'm not mistaken, released first.

Zelda has not been included yet because of Twilight Princess being released on both platforms, but also just because I have continually been adding games to the chart and just haven't gotten to it yet. In tomorrows update I'll add Zelda TP Wii, and compare it to Zelda WW on GC. And just make a note that TP's Wii sales might be effected because of the GC release. If anybody else has a game they would like to see added to the chart please comment, and I'll make it a priority in my updates.

Daily Update Posted.  I didn't get any feedback, on why people were voting that it was too hard to follow the chart in the poll, so I'm making the assumption that the length of the chart was part of the problem.  I split the chart up into seperate posts by platform, hopefully that makes it easier to follow. I also added two games, to the PS3, Wii, 360. There is starting to be enough games in the chart that adding a new game doesn't effect the total that much, except when you add a game that has a huge increase/decrease like Call of Duty 360.

Game of the Day

(Highlighting a game to talk about the change in sales)

8/23

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

 Description: Since someone requested the data for Zelda games I added it to the chart today, and also decided to make Twilight Princess the game of the day. The Zelda franchise is interesting because sales wise it's not Nintendo's largest, but it certainly has the biggest internet following. The change in sales from Wind Waker to Twilight Princes (Wii), is also interesting to look at because there are a number of factors to consider.  How much do you think each of these contributed to the change in sales for Twilight Princess; being a launch title, the change in art style, the darker theme, reviews, the availability of the gamecube version, expansion of the fanbase? Do you have any other theory's about why the game increased in sales, or why it's increase in sales was relatively small?

My take: I think the sales for Twilight Princess were mainly effected, by being a launch title, and the change in art style. The art style was seemingly popular in the West, but Japanese gamers prefered the cell shading in Wind Waker.  Also the release of the gamecube version probably did prevent the sales of the wi game from going higher, but I don't think the Wii version would have sold an additional 1.5 million (GC version sales) copies if the gamecube game didn't release.  Also, I think it is interesting looking at the chart the more traditional style games on Wii, Smash Bros, Mario, Metroid Prime, and now Zelda, all have seen a smaller than 30% increase.  While other games like Mario Party and Mario Kart are over 100% increases. In my opinion that is just further proof that Nintendo really is expanding their userbase outside of traditional gamers.

About Twilight Princess, I think the game being a launch game and the better reception of the art style than Wind Waker, was enough to offset the release of the Gamecube version. The bigger Wii user base tipped the scale in Twilight Princess's favor a little bit. The game is still selling a little, and if there was ever a players choice version of the game, I could see it getting to a 25% increase from Wind Waker.

I think of the games you updated in the chart, it is very interesting about Call of Duty. Call of Duty 360 is now by far the biggest %gainer in the chart, and the PS3 version is really about flat from the PS2 versions. A big part of that is the low sales of Call of Duty 3 on the PS3, and the fact that the franchise already sold well on the PS2 in it's first two games. The Xbox only had the original Call of Duty, and the 360 got Call of Duty 2. But still it is amazing how much better the game is doing on the Xbox this generation than on Playstation.

@ Lester
I think your right, and that Twilight Princess probably will end up in the 20-25% range when it is done selling.
I also thought the Call of Duty comparison's between the 360 and PS3 are interesting, obviously the different circumstances between the franchise on the PS2 and Xbox are a big part of the change in sales but I think it still says a lot about how well the 360 is doing software wise. Especially for the FPS shooter genre. I don't agree that it is a "shooter console" because it has a number of good games in different genres. But it definitely sells FPSs very well.