Obviously other countries have holidays, but I really don't see how that is relevant in an NPD thread. When someone makes a general statement in this thread (like the person you are replying to), you should generally assume they mean the US or North American market no?
No, those games sell up to 70-80% of their sales outside of North America, they don't sell well in NA regardless of their release date
Even if we look at the global market, Gran Turismo 5 is literally one data point. GT6 sold like shit, and the previous two titles sold just as well or better in July and Feb/Mar. I can't find the relevant shipment data, but I am almost certain that Uncharted 3 wasn't all that much higher than The Last of Us after its first 12-14 months. I don't see any real evidence that exclusives sell best during the Holidays, other than the fact that all of the Halo games have launched in Sept-Nov.
Certainly, no one has refuted the fact that exclusives don't rule the holidays. Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3 each outsold the entire Uncharted series combined as of our last shipment report. If you want to just look at Holiday 2011, Modern Warfare 3 on PS3 alone was well over Uncharted 3 (US or Global). Skyrim PS3 was probably under, but not drastically so. I don't remember what the breakdown of Battlefield 3 was.
the Uncharted franchise
sold 8 million just before UC3 launched, 5 months later it
hit 17 million units, so UC3 sold upwards of 9 million units in its launch window, the franchise sold an additional 4 million since then. It took The Last of Us an entire year to hit 7 million units.
As for GT5, here are a few charts from PAL in 2010
Christmas week:
Denmark:
01 (02) Call Of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard)
02 (03) Gran Turismo 5 (Nordisk Film)
03 (04) Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (Electronic Arts)
04 (07) Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
05 (01) Fifa 11 (Electronic Arts)
Spain:
01 (02) [PS3] Gran Turismo 5 (Sony)
02 (01) [PS3] Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision)
03 (__) [NDS] Art Academy (Nintendo)
04 (__) [PC] World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm (Activision Blizzard)
05 (__) [WII] Wii Party (Nintendo)
Italy:
01 (02) [PS3] Gran Turismo 5 (Sony)
02 (01) [WII] Wii Party (Nintendo)
03 (03) [WII] Wii Fit Plus + Balance Board (Nintendo)
04 (05) [360] Kinect Adventures (Microsoft)
05 (04) [WII] Donkey Kong Country Returns (Nintendo)
06 (07) [PS3] Call of Duty Black Ops
Germany:
01 (01) [WII] Wii Party (Nintendo)
02 (03) [PS3] Gran Turismo 5 (Sony)
03 (07) [PS3] Call Of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard)
04 (02) [WII] Donkey Kong Country Returns (Nintendo)
05 (08) [WII] New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo)
Just to name a few. Feel free to search GAF for more PAL charts during that entire holiday season.
We already have previous Halo numbers in this thread, all of them released in the holiday season as well.
EDIT: Just as a reminder, NPD launch month alone:
Halo 3: 3.3 million.
Halo Reach: 3.3 million.
Halo 4: 3.2 million.