Liabe Brave said:
Of course, the absolute numbers involved here are so low that solid conclusions are tough. And we probably won't know the answer for quite some time, given that TLR and SO4 are coming, and the holidays are rushing in. But I'd still wager that we're going to see something akin to Blue Dragon; remember, that one title kept 360 sales above 10k for five weeks (all the way through the holidays into the next year), and above 5k for three more weeks after that. Yet the system stayed moribund in Japan.
I know, I know, it's so boring to predict that the future will be like the past! Unfortunately it's a nasty, ugly little fact that this is how most things work, including the Japanese console market.
In all honesty, nothing is the same as they were a couple of years ago. How many people here expected the PS3 sales to be so freaking low on a regular basis? And how many people a year ago would have agreed to the idea that the 360 can outsell the PS3, not just for one week, but for a month, and possible multiple months in Japan?
The truth is, things have gone like this:
1. The 360 will not even reach the sales of the original Xbox.
2. The 360 can't match the PS3's sales even for a week.
3. Ok so the 360 can beat the PS3 for a week, but it's only a week, it will never happen again and it's not on a regular basis
4. Ok so 360 surpassed the Xbox in half the time, but it will never reach a million.
5. The 360 CAN beat the PS3 on a more regular basis, with the right games and it looks like it can match and beat the PS3, for consecutive MONTHS, not just weeks.
6. One million is possible, but 2 million is not likely.
Seriously, while these are hardly accomplishments in the grand scheme of things, it has proven a lot of "general conclusions" wrong over the past 3 years in Japan and looks set to continue that trend. It's making believers out of a lot of people because one year ago serious sales discussion of 360 sales in Japan were nothing more than: :lol
Also I believe studying sales on a weekly basis does not/can not show momentum. I am willing to bet if you were to look at NPD sales, you would see similar up and then sharply down sales spike just like in Japan. The only difference is, we get numbers monthly, and we don't see that. There's always little spikes through the months, but they all add up and create consistent numbers on a monthly basis.
Looking at the MC numbers on a monthly basis, shows the same thing:
If 360 has weekly sales spikes every month or every other month, then monthly it shows a consistent increase in sales compared to previous months.
Notice the months previous to BD, and then after BD.
Since that 06 holiday the 360 has never had a month as low as pre BD months with the exception of one month, April 2008.
Going into this holiday season, it looks to have the strongest pre-Nov/Dec sales of any previous year. September is not there, but obviously you can already expect 30k for this month and whatever else it does in the next couple of weeks.
If TLR is anywhere near BD in popularity(I expect somewhere in between AC6 and BD), I would expect this turn of events to turn out just like BD and carry on for a couple of months into 2008. And then you have SO4. Something that it never had after BD. SO4 is the largest of all, so whereas before all the momentum started by BD eventually dissipated and led up to, well basically, NOTHING, due to there not being another game of that calibur basically until Ace Combat 6 in Nov of 07, this time whatever momentum it's gaining now will LEAD UP TO SO4.
It's also never had a 4 month stretch of month over month increase like it is having right now, begining with JUN '08. So while weekly, things look very erratic, monthly, it's showing a consistent increase.
If MC released numbers only once a month, all we would know is that the 360 has been increasing its sales every month for the past 3 months, and will do the same again this month.
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