Hardware sales were up slightly this week on the debuts of Tiger Woods, Tales of Vesperia, and Mario Baseball. The next few weeks should be quite interesting as the impacts of the Xbox 360 price cut become apparent.
After a quiet week in the shadow of the latest Madden, there were five new titles which sold over 40,000 units this week. EA, Nintendo, and Namco-Bandai led the charge, with a new Tiger Woods on multiple platforms, a Mario baseball game on Wii, and Tales of Vesperia for Xbox 360. With the new releases for the week, total hardware sales were up slightly from last week. DS saw the biggest increase for the week, as bundles were introduced to counteract the typical early fall decline in portable sales after the back to school rush. PSP, which had no such measure this week, saw the largest drop of all platforms. In the ongoing PS3 vs. Xbox 360 battle in the Americas, PS3 outsold its main rival another week, though it is important to remember that this is the last week unaffected by the Xbox 360 price drop. Next week, the Xbox 360 should see a slight boost (the price drop went into effect September 5th , VGC data will be through September 6th ) followed by a larger boost the following weeks. The larger boost should jettison Xbox 360 above PS3 once again as the price advantage widens.
