Starting this month's Gamasutra-exclusive NPD analysis, Jesse Divnich examines whether the U.S. market can sustain multiple console FPSes launching in the same month, examining surprising data on Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Army of Two, and updating on the PS3/Xbox 360 hardware battle.

For individual software units, last month we theorized that the next-generation systems have matured enough that it might be possible for 2 AAA “shooters” to be released in one month on the PS3/Xbox 360, with little hindrance on each others sales.

The results were better than expected, as Vegas 2 sold a combined 907,000 units and Army of Two sold 831,000 units across SKUs, for an impressive total of 1,738,000 units for both games. This is leaps and bounds ahead of where we were just seven months ago, as titles like BioShock and Half-Life: Orange Box were quickly cannibalized by Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4.



On further inspection, we can theorize that it is not just market maturity that led to their achievement, but also that both titles were targeting two different sub-markets who are attracted to these “shooters” or “action” titles.

In my NPD analysis last week, I stated that, based on March’s results, publishers and developers need not worry about their release schedule.

This is because the next-generation market has matured enough to where several AAA releases can be launched in a given month without much hindrance on each others sales.

Unfortunately, that blanket statement needs further analysis (yes, you heard it from an analyst, we can be wrong!). March’s sales likely did not see much cannibalization, as the three big AAA releases (Vegas 2, Army of Two, SSBB) were targeting a wide range of sub-market demographics within our industry.