October is now over and the rankings are in...Just_Ben is our number one player once again with a monster 261.09% return. Congratulations to Heloise10 who placed second with a 125.37% return and Kemkle33 who placed third with a 107.06% return. Check out the complete October rankings.

As many players have noticed, we introduced a couple new community levels. The level cap is now at 7, with the titles "Guru" for level 6 and "Oracle for level 7. The title for level 2 is now "Lurker" and the title for level 5 is now "Elite." Level 6 requires 1,000 net bids and awards you 1.5 million DKP. Level 7 requires 2,000 net bids and awards you 3 million DKP.

As per user requests, we have expanded the Lifetime Net Worth Rankings to the top 1,000 traders. We have also expanded the Community Rankings to the top 200 members.

It's time to introduce the games for the month of December. Many of the titles for this month are carry overs from November. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Xbox 360) (submitted by djhellboy87 and Joe80) and Timeshift (PS3) (submitted by kspraydad) will also have global lifetime sales stocks making a debut. All of these games will also have Metacritic Futures to accompany their NPD Futures IPOs unless a Metacritic Future for that game is already listed.

NPD Futures, Metacritic Futures, and stocks will debut in a two phase IPO. 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.

Update: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3) has replaced Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Xbox 360). Kane & Lynch will still be listed as a stock and a Metacritic future on November 5.

• December Futures

  IPO Phase 1	IPO Phase 2	Title	Platform	Company	Release Date
  10/25	10/27	Total Software Sales	N/A	N/A	N/A
  10/26	10/28	Call of Duty 4	Xbox 360	ATVI	11/5
  10/27	10/29	Super Mario Galaxy	Wii	NTDOY	11/12
  10/28	10/30	Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles	Wii	Capcom	11/13
  10/29	10/31	Mario Party DS	DS	NTDOY	11/19
  10/30	11/1	Mass Effect	Xbox 360	MSFT	11/20
  10/31	11/2	Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (DS)	DS	Square Enix	11/20
  11/1	11/3	Uncharted: Drake's Fortune	PS3	SNE	11/20
  11/2	11/4	Timeshift	PS3	Sierra	12/4
  11/3	11/5	Half-Life 2: Orange Box	PS3	ERTS	12/11
  11/4	11/6	Nights: Journey of Dreams	Wii	Sega	12/18

The simExchange's September Review Report is now available.

Halo 3 outsold expectations of 2.93 million units with 3.3 million units sold for all three SKUs combined. The game drove Xbox 360 hardware sales to be the number one console for September, with 527,800 units sold, well ahead of market expectations of 452,600 units. Overall, the market had not expected Halo 3 sales to cannabilize the rest of the industry to such a degree. All other games tracked by the simExchange in September underperformed expectations.

Growth in the video game industry came inline with market predictions. Total video game software sales grew 46.7% from $445.4 million to $653.6 million. This was just 1.24% below the final trading's expectations of $661.8 million.

Sony's PS3 once again severly underperformed expectations, selling only 119,400 units in the five week retail month, compared with expectations for 159,100 units. The PSP, on the other hand, had a strong month with the release of the PSP Lite, selling 284,500 units compared to expectations at 291,000.

Sales of Nintendo's Wii continue strongly, despite the fact that the console had no major releases in September. Sales came in at 501,000 units, beating expectations of 468,600 units. The Nintendo DS was also exhibited strong sales, selling 495,000 units, just below market expectations of 498,300 units.

The most surprising result was that Halo 3 substantially took market share from all othe titles tracked in September. All other titles underperformed market expectations with the exception of Skate (Xbox 360). Although actuals for each individual title appear to be well below market expectations, total unit sales were actually only 7.29% below expectations.

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

• US Hardware in September 2007

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Xbox 360	527,800	452,600	+16.62%
  Nintendo Wii	501,000	468,600	+6.91%
  Nintendo DS	495,000	498,300	-0.66%
  PlayStation Portable	284,500	291,000	-2.23%
  PLAYSTATION 3	119,400	159,100	-24.95%
  Total Hardware Units	1,927,700	1,869,600	+3.11%

• US Software in September 2007

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Halo 3 (Xbox 360)	3,300,000	2,929,000	+12.67%
  2	Wii Play w/ Remote	282,000	--	--
  3	The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)	224,000	383,500	-41.59%
  4	Madden NFL 08 (PS2)	205,000	--	--
  5	Skate (Xbox 360)	175,000	150,500	+16.28%
  6	Madden NFL 08 (Xbox 360)	173,000	236,700	-26.91%
  7	Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)	167,000	262,600	-36.41%
  8	BioShock (Xbox 360)	150,000	285,100	-47.39%
  9	Brain Age 2 (DS)	141,200	182,200	-22.50%
  10	Heavenly Sword (PS3)	139,000	181,400	-23.37%
  NR	Stranglehold (Xbox 360)	104,200	249,800	-58.29%
  NR	Madden NFL 08 (PS3)	61,800	107,100	-42.30%
  NR	Lair (PS3)	57,800	94,300	-38.71%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	4,693,000	5,062,200	-7.29%
  	Total Software Sales	$653.6 million	$661.8 million	-1.24%

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."

IPOs for global lifetime stocks are back. Based on user suggestions and user bids, here are some 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.

October 18, Thursday: Electronic Art's Need for Speed Prostreet (PS3) and Need for Speed Prostreet (Xbox 360). The games were submitted by Joe80 and SyrinxPriest.

October 19, Friday: Konami's Contra 4 (DS). The game was submitted by frogcrusher.

October 20, Saturday: Sierra's Geometry Wars: Galaxies (Wii). The game was submitted by Laoldar.

October 21, Sunday: Nintendo's Mario Party (DS). The game was submitted by Laoldar.

October 22, Monday: Sony's Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3) The game was submitted by Jess__.

The simExchange's September Preview Report is now available online for free.

We are now soliciting nominations for games to be listed as NPD Futures for the month of December. Games fitting this description are generally new titles that will be the top sellers of the month. These should be the titles that are most relevant to the industry as a whole and will get the most people trading. We are limited to only 10 NPD futures contracts each month, so choose wisely. Anyone in the simExchange community is welcome to nominate titles, after all, it's you who will be trading it!

Player profiles have been updated to include the new Community titles and Trader Levels. We have also included the player's views on NPD sales and Metacritic Metascores.

We have modified the bullish and bearish views to only include the positions that are substantial, rather than including positions users may have just to keep an eye on a stock or futures contract. The intention is to give people an idea of where you stand on various forecasts. We understand many players have become secretive about their views in recent months, and this is part of the effort to get players bantering about their positions and talking more about their forecasts.