Clash of the titans!

[JSR]

As is probably clear to all in here by now: This holiday season has one of the densest high profile release schedule we have seen in quite some time. Sure every years feels like huge strain on your wallet, but in the sheer number of big blockbuster games, I think this is the strongest period we have had in at least four years, if not more. The last few years, an ugly trend has been developing. The money spent on games are divided among fewer games than ever before, making it harder and harder for the lesser IPs to be profitable. I foresee the average person buying around 2 or 3 games before the year is up, and as games are designed to entertain you for months to come with their multiplayer/constant stream of DLC, many gamers will probably be more than content with just one game.

It's a fierce battle for our money, and some of them will fare worse than others. I actually expect some of the higher profile games to do surprisingly worse at retail than what we might have expected. Almost all of the participants have spent enormous sums of money on not only development, but also on marketing (which often outweigh the dev cost). A lot is on stake. I think some companies will be equally shocked, and will take drastic actions to prevent too much loss. Cut-backs in one of the larger studios won't surprise me.

So, what will the outcome be? Will Call of Duty yet again dominate the charts, or have people had enough of the franchise and are at the same time swayed by BF3's marketing? Will Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 make the 3DS sell at respectable numbers? Will unique games like Dark Souls drown in the maelstrom?

PREDICT!

[PeteJ]

I think Need for Speed: The Run is going to be the big loser this xmas. I'm personally quite looking forward to it, but it's going to get killed unless they delay it until 2012. Same goes for Driver this Friday as it happens. I also think Nintendo are going to have a bad Q4.
Gears 3? Can see that disappointing at retail too, not quite joining Bulletstorm but enough to make Epic sad. For a franchise that is supposed to match Halo on the Xbox there is very little hype, certainly not feeling the excitement as when Halo 3 was just around the corner.

I can't see many games getting steller sales apart from CoD, and more than likely Zumba Fitness. BF3 will sell in the millions but it won't defeat COD, not until it becomes cool to talk about it on Facebook!

[JSR]

Gears 3 at least has some breathing room before the avalanche, I think that could really help it reach decent sales, but the hype is a tad low.

NFS The Run looks strange to me. I fail to see what demographic it appeals to. On the surface it seems like a Fast & Furious styled game, but the focus on a story and a linear progression seems like something the non-gamer would dislike. And the handling and visuals seem very bland.

[Decider-VT]

I can't help but get the feeling that Dark Souls will tank. Demon's Souls was lucky enough to be unique and had excellent word-of-mouth but it took a long time for news of how good it was to get around. There'll be far too much competition for the gamer's pound this Christmas and unfortunately the big franchises will have gift givers cornered with lavish marketing spends. Bodes well for New Year discounts but this Christmas is going to be a bloody one for the industry with MW3, FIFA and Battlefield going head to head.

[Neon Ignition]

In a nutshell I'm expecting

-FIFA 12 will be a strong placer
-NFS The Run will get panned
-MW3 will slightly outsell Black Ops record figures and represent the peak of the series sales curve whilst being biasedly moaned about as usual
-BF3 will fail to come close to MW3's figures but will outpace Bad Company 2 and EA will find some way to spin it into a 'we won' story
-Skyward Sword will be brilliant but not meet sales expectations due to coming out too late in the Wii's life
-Ultimate MvC3 will tank
-Skyrim will be rated in the 95% range but be ?25 within 4 weeks
-3DS will see solid, good sales throughout the Xmas run but not sell out
-Uncharted 3 will be moaned about in First Play for being 'more of the same' despite ROCKING
-PSVita will launch Jap side big and tail off fast
-Arkham City will be good but some will be deflated by it now it lacks the surprise impact AA did
-Xbox 360 will, between Dec and Apr, slip into 3rd place

[Flabio]

Oblivion did INSANE numbers, so the odds of Skyrim dropping in price that quickly are pretty slim. It will however not get a number one as it's too close to Ass Creed Rev which will do an easy 3 million by the end of the year.

MW3 will beat BF3 (not that shocking a prediction really that one)

UMvC3? It'll do decent numbers. It doesn't have to sell more than around a million because the dev costs are pretty low on that.

[abigsmurf]

Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario Land will easily be multi-millions sellers and will likely keep selling up until the 3DS' death. I don't think they're enough to get to no.1 for the 25th but they could be enough for an Xmas 3DS console shortage in most regions.

Skyward Sword will place at 5th or lower in the combined multiformat chart.

PSVita will have a massive launch, easily outselling the 3DS' one to the extent where it'll be supply constrained. The launch and launch window looks set to have an immense mix of AAA titles and niche titles and the continued buzz around the PSP will propel this (whereas Japan was starting to get tired of the DS by the 3DS launch).

[Neon Ignition]

I figured Elders Scroll will drop quick because New Vegas did despite strong sales, it's a silly time to release it as it's an time exhaustive game immediately following a chain of games that I imagine most will still prioritise as a purchase which last year led to New Vegas's bouyancey supporting lower tag.

[PeteJ]

Eldar Scrolls is a much bigger franchise than Fallout, but I agree it's a silly time to release...I think the hype will be enough to make it one of the standout titles this quarter however.

Will be interesting to see how well Assassin's Creed does, I always see it as a bit of a niche title and yet the series has shifted tens of millions.

[EvilBoris]

The last one was the biggest selling one so far, which is pretty impressive, you'd of thought the sales would of gone down for such a story driven sequential game.
Maybe people playing preowned games isn't always such a bad thing.

Brotherhood really nailed everything and was definitely the best game so far (it even had a really good multiplayer mode) which is impressive given the time it took to knock it out.

[Fader209]

I have given Assassins Creed two attempts to win me over and it has bored me stupid on both occasions. Needless to say I will be giving the next one a miss.

As far as the casual market goes it will be down to Modern Warfare and Battlefield no doubt. There are an awful lot of idiots out there who will swear allegiance to MW even if it was awful and I think it will still beat out Battlefield despite the hype the latter is getting.

[Neon Ignition]

To be fair, there's millions who would swear by BF if it was awful too

[Matt]

In a nutshell I'm expecting

-FIFA 12 will be a strong placer
-NFS The Run will get panned
-MW3 will slightly outsell Black Ops record figures and represent the peak of the series sales curve whilst being biasedly moaned about as usual
-BF3 will fail to come close to MW3's figures but will outpace Bad Company 2 and EA will find some way to spin it into a 'we won' story
-Skyward Sword will be brilliant but not meet sales expectations due to coming out too late in the Wii's life
-Ultimate MvC3 will tank
-Skyrim will be rated in the 95% range but be ?25 within 4 weeks
-3DS will see solid, good sales throughout the Xmas run but not sell out
-Uncharted 3 will be moaned about in First Play for being 'more of the same' despite ROCKING
-PSVita will launch Jap side big and tail off fast
-Arkham City will be good but some will be deflated by it now it lacks the surprise impact AA did
-Xbox 360 will, between Dec and Apr, slip into 3rd place

This is pretty much spot on, imo.

[egparadigm]

I have given Assassins Creed two attempts to win me over and it has bored me stupid on both occasions. Needless to say I will be giving the next one a miss.

Tried number 2 myself. Hated it.

[PeteJ]

I'd actually rate AC as one of the few titles that deserve annual updates, despite the first game being terrible. The second took an awful long time to get going but it was eventually a belter, likewise everything about Brotherhood. It's odd finding a series that is so good, so popular among 'casuals' and yet so ignored by the 'core'. I wonder if the same formula can strike again though - it is about time AC3 was released.

Edit - black ops has sold 18 million map packs. This series is going nowhere!