Video games sales for November exceeded the market's expectations. Total hardware units came in at 4.32 million units, 6.41% ahead of the market's expected 4.06 million units. Sales of all consoles, except for the Nintendo Wii, beat market expectations.

Many industry observers were concerned that the slowing US economy and slower Holiday shopping this year would dampen game sales, which explains conservative forecasts across the board. Data released by the NPD Group indicate that the pessimism was unwarranted.

As expected by the market, the Nintendo Wii lead home hardware sales with 981,000 units, just below the expected 1,085,500 units. The miss in Wii sales is likely due to a shortage of supply as the console is sold out across America. Xbox 360 came in second for home consoles with 770,000 units sold, 2.23% ahead of market expectations of 753,200 units. Once again, the PS3 came in third with 466,000 units sold, which breaks months of disappointing market expecations. The market had only expected 424,400 PS3 units to be sold.

Nintendo DS sales smashed market expectations with at 1,535,000 units sold, compared to 1,297,700 expected unit sales. The PSP sold 567,000 units, also beating expectations of 497,900 units.

Growth in video game sales was also beyond market expectations. Total video game software sales grew 61.7% from $804 million in November 2006 to $1.3 billion, ahead of the market's expected $1.16 billion.

The month's big winner, Activision's Call of Duty 4 crushed market expectations. The Xbox 360 SKU sold 1,565,404 units compared to an expectation of 840,000 units.

Electronic Arts' Rock Band also smashed expectations, selling 311,900 units on the Xbox 360, more than doubling the market's expectation of 147,900 units.

The following tables compare market expectations on the simExchange and actual results as reported by the NPD Group.

• US Hardware in November 2007

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo Wii	981,000	1,085,500	-9.63%
  Nintendo DS	1,535,000	1,297,700	+18.29%
  Xbox 360	770,000	753,200	+2.23%
  PlayStation Portable	567,000	497,900	+13.88%
  PLAYSTATION 3	466,000	424,400	+9.80%
  PlayStation 2	496,000	--	--
  Total Tracked Hardware Units	4,319,000	4,058,700	+6.41%

• US Software in November 2007

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360)	1,565,404	840,000	+86.36%
  2	Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)	1,123,070	1,304,800	-13.93%
  3	Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360)	980,000	--	--
  4	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2)	967,000	--	--
  5	Wii Play (Wii)	564,000	--	--
  6	Mass Effect (Xbox 360)	472,793	395,400	+19.57%
  7	Call of Duty 4 (PS3)	444,000	--	--
  8	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii)	426,000	--	--
  9	Halo 3 (Xbox 360)	387,000	--	--
  10	Assassin's Creed (PS3)	376,843	272,300	+38.38%
  NR	Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)	328,314	246,600	+33.13%
  NR	Rock Band (Xbox 360)	311,903	147,900	+110.89%
  NR	Crysis (PC)	86,633	68,600	+26.28%
  NR	Unreal Tournament 3 (PC)	33,995	70,600	-51.84%
  NR	Manhunt 2 (Wii)	18,494	47,100	-60.74%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	4,317,390	3,483,300	+23.95%
  	Total Software Sales	$1.3 billion	$1.16 billion	+12.07%

How exactly does this work?

Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using virtual currency called DKP, players buy virtual futures contracts that are under-predicting sales and short sell futures that are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as "the Wisdom of the Crowd" and this system is known as a "prediction market."

About the predictions

Predictions on the simExchange should become more accurate over time as (1) the diversity of the pool of traders increases and as (2) more accurate players are rewarded with more virtual currency for their accuracy (thereby enabling them to form more predictions) and less accurate players lose virtual currency (thereby discounting their ability to form more predictions).

This has been long delayed to ensure games we list are actually coming out in January 2008. Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom (Xbox 360) (submitted by djhellboy87) will also have a global lifetime sales stock and Metacritic Future making a debut. Burnout Paradise (PS3) and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (Xbox 360) will also have Metacritic Futures.

NPD Futures, Metacritic Futures, and stocks will debut in two-phase IPOs. IPO Phase 1 is a 48 hour period of trading without automated market making to determine the IPO Phase 2 price. Advanced trading mode is required to place orders in IPO Phase 1. After IPO Phase 1, the futures contracts will enter IPO Phase 2 in which the bid and ask prices will be fixed all day.

• January NPD Futures

  IPO Phase 1	IPO Phase 2	Title	Platform	Company	Release Date
  12/11	12/13	Guitar Hero III	Wii	ATVI	10/29
  12/12	12/14	Super Mario Galaxy	Wii	NTDOY	11/12
  12/13	12/15	Rock Band	Xbox 360	ERTS	11/20
  12/14	12/16	Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity	Wii	NTDOY	1/8
  12/15	12/17	Kingdom Under Fire	Xbox 360	MSFT	1/8
  12/16	12/18	Advance Wars: Days of Ruin	DS	NTDOY	1/21
  12/17	12/19	Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games	DS	NTDOY	1/22
  12/18	12/20	Dark Sector	PS3	D3	1/22
  12/19	12/21	Burnout Paradise	PS3	ERTS	1/22
  12/20	12/22	Turning Point: Fall of Liberty	Xbox 360	Codemasters	1/22
  12/21	12/23	Haze	PS3	UBI

The Community Leagues are up. Currently, three web communities are participating in our Leagues program. These communities are NeoGAF, Evil Avatar, and Cheap Ass Gamer. The purpose of these leagues is to allow people to compare themselves with the members of the other web communities they are members, but also to enable web communities to compete against each other.

To join a league and support a web community, simply enter your username for that web community in your Profile. Then check out your League from the Community section: NeoGAF League, Evil Avatar League, and Cheap Ass Gamer League. This is a separate feature from Your League, which is the league you define from your friends on the simExchange.

As part of making the simExchange easier to use, we have simplified the navigation with pull-down menus. We understand the number of links on the left nav bar was building up and so we have consolidated the links.

Please let us know if you run into any problems with this. Additional suggestions for making navigation easier are always welcome.

Congratulations to ixaarii for being our first place player in November 2007. ixaarii gained 110.28% in November. Our second place player was Danmir with a 72.57% return followed by Evil Avatar's bapenguin with a 65.46% return scored from 28 user conversions. The next runner up was alesul with a 60.56% return. Although unseated from a back-to-back standing at #1 in October and September, Just_Ben managed a 47.86% return, moving from 15 million to 22.1 million DKP in just one month.

For complete rankings, check the November 2007 rankings page. The monthly rankings page has been improved for easier navigation to previous month standings.

The following are upcoming stock IPOs. Remember, each stock enters a 48-hour IPO Phase 1 in which there is no market maker providing prices. Once a market price is established, players can buy at the same price all day in IPO Phase 2.

If you want a game listed for trading, be sure to bid for it in the Unlisted Games section. If you don't see the game listed there, submit it!

November 30, Friday: Sega's Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity (Wii). The game was submitted by Makidian.

December 1, Saturday: Nintendo's Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (DS) lifetime stock and Metacritic Future. The game was submitted by Gaara42.

December 2, Sunday: Namco's Soul Calibur IV (Xbox 360) lifetime stock and Metacritic Future. The game was submitted by Grorx and RoarinRapid.

December 3, Monday: D3's Dark Sector (Xbox 360) and Dark Sector (PS3) lifetime stocks and Metacritic Future. The games were submitted by Paroxysm and kspraydad.

December 4, Tuesday: Codemasters' Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (Xbox 360). The game was submitted by MstrLckM.

Following user demand, you can now remove your own article, image, and video submissions. You may want to do this if the link becomes broken because it is old or because it is an unnecessary duplicate. Simply goto the Your Articles, Your Images, or Your Videos page to manage your content. Remember, you can alway edit your submission as well.

User profiles have been improved. You can now directly add you Xbox Live Tag, PSN Tag, and Wii Friend Code to your profile for others in the simExchange Community to view. If you are a member of Evil Avatar or NeoGAF, you can also add your username for those communities. Players who include their aliases for other communities will soon show up in the upcoming leagues for these communities.

To modify your profile, goto the Profile page under Account. To view the profiles of other players, simply click on their name.

January 2008 NPD Hardware and Total Software Sales Futures will launch with the holidays. NPD Futures for the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii will IPO on Wednesday, November 23. NPD Futures for the Nintendo DS, PSP, and Total Software Sales will IPO on Thursday, November 24. These are the Phase 1 IPO dates, which launch at 11AM Pacific on the day. Phase 2 IPO occurs 48 hours after the Phase 1 IPO begins.

Hardware sales for October were largely in line with the market's expectations. Total hardware units came in at 1.75 million units, just 0.57% ahead of the market's expected 1.74 million units.

As expected by the market, the Nintendo Wii lead hardware sales with 519,000 units, beating the expected 470,600 units. Xbox 360 came in second for home consoles with 366,000 units sold, just 8.18% below the market's expectation of 398,600 units. Once again, the PS3 came in third with 121,000 units sold, once again disappointing the market, which had expected 149,400 units.

Nintendo DS sales came in line at 458,000 units, compared to 467,400 expected unit sales. The PSP sold 286,000, beating expectations of 254,100 units.

Growth in video game sales was slightly below market expectations. Total video game software sales grew 39% from $369.3 million in October 2006 to $513.9 million. This was 7.19% below the market's expected $553.7 million.

The month's big winner, Activision's Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, came in line with the market's expectations. For the Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3 SKUs tracked by the simExchange in October, the game sold 882,900 units, just 1.22% above the market's expectation of 872,300 units.

This was the first month an NPD Future included a PC game. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC) sold 18,600 units, far below the market's expectations of 124,300 units. This miss is likely due to a combination of smaller awareness of PC game sales, along with very disappointing sales.

The following tables compare market expectations on the simExchange and actual results as reported by the NPD Group.

• US Hardware in October 2007

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo Wii	519,000	470,600	+10.28%
  Nintendo DS	458,000	467,400	-2.01%
  Xbox 360	366,000	398,600	-8.18%
  PlayStation Portable	286,000	254,100	+12.55%
  PLAYSTATION 3	121,000	149,400	-19.01%
  Total Hardware Units	1,750,000	1,740,100	+0.57%

• US Software in October 2007

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Halo 3 (Xbox 360)	433,800	723,200	-40.02%
  2	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360)	490,800	548,100	-10.45%
  3	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii)	286,300	211,400	+35.43%
  4	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) w/ Guitar	271,100	--	--
  5	The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)	262,800	270,600	-2.88%
  6	Wii Play w/ Remote	239,700	--	--
  7	Half-life 2: The Orange Box (Xbox 360)	238,400	420,300	-43.28%
  8	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) stand-alone	231,700	--	--
  9	FIFA Soccer 08 (PS2)	129,700	--	--
  10	Brain Age 2 (DS)	116,900	--	--
  NR	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS3)	105,800	112,800	-6.21%
  NR	Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)	98,100	127,700	-23.18%
  NR	Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)	74,500	129,200	-42.34%
  NR	Project Gotham Racing 4 (Xbox 360)	38,300	81,100	-52.77%
  NR	Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC)	18,600	124,300	-85.04%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	2,047,400	3,058,860	-38.00%
  	Total Software Sales	$513.9 million	$553.7 million	-7.19%

How exactly does this work?

Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using virtual currency called DKP, players buy virtual futures contracts that are under-predicting sales and short sell futures that are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as "the Wisdom of the Crowd" and this system is known as a "prediction market."

About the predictions

Predictions on the simExchange should become more accurate over time as (1) the diversity of the pool of traders increases and as (2) more accurate players are rewarded with more virtual currency for their accuracy (thereby enabling them to form more predictions) and less accurate players lose virtual currency (thereby discounting their ability to form more predictions).

Copyright and reprinting

The simExchange, LLC retains the right to the content of this article but permits the reprinting of this article with proper credit to the simExchange. Sales data published here includes data disclosed with permission by the NPD Group exclusively for the purpose of settling futures contracts on the simExchange.

Please provide you readers some context of what the simExchange is and how our forecasts work, example: "The simExchange is an online virtual stock market in which gamers, developers, and investors trade stock to predict how games will sell."