Where Will Wii Be?

Xbox and PS3 Battle With New Releases

By Lutz Muller
March 2008

In January I published several buyers’ best guesses as to the most promising video games for the year. In the last column of the chart below are updates of what has happened since. In addition to three delays in release dates, you’ll notice that “The Club” by Sega, which buyers predicted to be the 13th-best-selling game of 2008, did not come in among the top 10 in February. Capcom’s “Devil May Cry” was ranked to become the 19th-best-selling game of the year, but highly surpassed those expectations in February, coming in at No. 2 in the United States and No. 1 in the UK.

Rank	Name of Game	Consoles	Publisher	Release Date	Comments
1	Grand Theft Auto IV	360, PS3	Take-Two	04/11/2008
2	Halo Wars	360	Microsoft	07/01/2008
3	Spore	PC	Electronic Arts	05/01/2008
4	Saints Row	360, PS3	THQ	12/31/2008
5	Metal Gear Solid	PS3	Konami	06/17/2008
6	Gran Turismo 5 Prologue	PS3	Sony	03/10/2008	Delayed to 12/4/08
7	Smash Bros Brawl	Wii	Nintendo	02/10/2008	Released: 3/9/08
8	Fall Out 3	PS3	Bethesda/Activision	09/09/2008
9	Star Wars: The Force Unleashed	360	Lucas Arts	04/08/2008
10	World of WarCraft: Wrath of the Lich King	PC	Blizzard/ Activision	09/09/2008
11	Final Fantasy XIII	PS3	Square Enix	12/01/2008
12	Splinter Cell Conviction	360	Ubisoft	06/03/2008
13	The Club	360, PC	Sega	02/19/2008	Not among top 10 in February
14	Alan Wake	360	Remedy	12/31/2008
15	Ghostbusters	PS3, Wii, 360, PC PS2, DS	Sierra/Activision	10/07/2008
16	Battlefield: Bad Company	360, PS3	Electronic Arts	03/24/2008	Delayed to 6/3/08
17	Army of Two	360, PS3	Electronic Arts	03/04/2008
18	Kill Zone	PS3	Sony	04/07/2008
19	Devil May Cry	360, PS3	Capcom	02/05/2008	No. 1 in UK and No. 2 in US in February*
20	StarCraft II	PC	Blizzard/ Activision	10/01/2008

* as per retailer panel

It is too early to draw any conclusions for March releases “Super Smash Bros Brawl” by Nintendo and “Army of Two” by Electronic Arts except to say that both are performing very well. “Super Smash” is actually on par with the first days of “Guitar Hero III” by Activision. Additionally, first numbers for “God of War: Chains of Olympus” (which came up from nowhere) by Sony for PSP suggest that the game is performing way above expectations. GameStop shop-floor kids think it is probably going to be the best handheld game of the year.

In terms of company performance, preliminary numbers provided by the buyers suggest that Sony’s PS3 is starting to do well and that Nintendo’s Wii is tailing off, as I predicted. Additionally, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 saw more sales in the beginning of 2007. According to the NPD Group, unit sales for the first two months in 2008 compared to 2007 are as follows:

These comparisons are also demonstrated in the web traffic for Sony, Nintendo and Electronic Arts:

However, blog intensity metrics suggest that the interest level in all three systems peaked just before Christmas, then took a nosedive and is now on the uptrend again. The PS3 has held steady with a marked upturn in March.