Based on user feedback, we have removed the down bids feature. The down bids often resulted in down bid wars, discouragement for discussion, and other problems. We hope removing down bids fosters a more positive community. If necessary, we will add a "mark as spam" feature if we start seeing spam appear on the site.

• July 2009 Top 5 Traders

  Rank	Name	% Change
  1	quigui	+47.39%
  2	noobie	+39.34%
  3	eleven79	+36.34%
  4	khwaja80	+30.01%
  5	altered30	+28.48%

Check out the complete July 2009 rankings.

You will be able to buy or short sell Global Lifetime Sales (GLS) Stocks at a fixed price for 48 hours. This allows all players equal access to the stock's IPO regardless of the time they log on. After 48 hours, the futures will trade as normal. All players, regardless of Basic or Advanced trading mode, will be able to participate in the IPO. All players are limited to 250,000 DKP positions in the IPO phase.

If you want a game listed for trading, be sure to bid for it in the Unlisted Games section.

• GLS Stock IPOs

  IPO Day	Title	Platform	Company	Submitter
  7/27	The Beatles: Rock Band	Xbox 360	Electronic Arts	dissimilis
  7/28	The Beatles: Rock Band	PS3	Electronic Arts	dissimilis
  7/29	The Beatles: Rock Band	Wii	Electronic Arts	wiiplay1
  7/30	Left 4 Dead 2	Xbox 360	Valve	Joe80
  7/31	Dead Rising 2	Xbox 360	Capcom	oznerol

You will be able to buy or short sell Global Lifetime Sales (GLS) Stocks and Metacritic Futures at a fixed price for 48 hours. This allows all players equal access to the stock's IPO regardless of the time they log on. After 48 hours, the futures will trade as normal. All players, regardless of Basic or Advanced trading mode, will be able to participate in the IPO. All players are limited to 250,000 DKP positions in the IPO phase.

We are discontinuing the listing of additional Metacritic Futures due to a lack of interest in trading these contracts.

If you want a game listed for trading, be sure to bid for it in the Unlisted Games section.

• GLS Stock IPOs

  IPO Day	Title	Platform	Company	Submitter
  7/20	Bioshock 2	PS3	2K Games	deftangel
  7/21	Assassin's Creed 2	Xbox 360	Ubisoft	SyrinxPriest
  7/22	Assassin's Creed 2	PS3	Ubisoft	SyrinxPriest
  7/23	Guitar Hero 5	Xbox 360	Activision Blizzard	joshtaco
  7/24	Guitar Hero 5	PS3	Activision Blizzard	kultofcows
  7/25	Guitar Hero 5	Wii	Activision Blizzard	joshtaco

Video game hardware sales in June 2009 came in just ahead market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 1.697 million, 9.6% better than the market's expectation for 1.55 million units sold. However, beating these expectations should be met with limited enthusiasm.

Anita Frazier of NPD Group comments: "The video games industry realized a significant decline  when compared to June 2008, the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year declines.  The first half of the year has been tough largely due to comparisons against a stellar first half performance last year, but still, this level of decline is certainly going to cause some pain and reflection in the industry... This month saw the greatest  year-over-year monthly decline since September 2000 when the industry declined 41%."

The simExchange prediction market had correctly forecasted this downturn, with actual sales coming in at $625.8M, just 9.64% better than the expected $616.2M.

Frazier continues that the economy is taking its toll on the video game industry: "This is one of the first months where I think the impact of the economy is clearly reflected in the sales numbers.  While the aggregate of content may not be as strong as what we saw in the first half of last year, and while the consumer base willing to spend dollars on hardware at the current price points may be thinning, the size of the decliine could also point to consumers deferring limited discretionary spending until  a big event (must-have new title, hardware price cut) compels them to spend."

The one bright spot for console sales, according to Frazier: "The Xbox 360 is the only platform to have realized a unit sales increase over last June.  YTD, both the 360 and NDS have generated an increase in unit sales.   Although many track month-to-month sales changes, comparisons to May must take into account that June is a five-week reporting month while May spanned four weeks."

An interesting note is that this is the first month since Wii Play has not appeared on the NPD Group's Top 10 sellers since the game was released 29 months ago.

Frazier points out: "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 had a great debut at retail, nearly doubling the units sold in the first month at market of the previous best-two launches:  PGA Tour '05 and '07, which sold 272K units each in their respective launch months .  No doubt a combination of moving the release date of the game out of "Madden Month" into June where golf was heavily televised due to the U.S. Open as well as well-received new game features and attributes helped contribute to this success." This latest installment's strong sales were exactly in line with the simExchange's expectations.

The market also tracked the sales of Guitar Hero: Smash Hits (Wii), The Conduit (Wii), and Wii Play which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Future will cash out at 19.27 DKP.

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

• US Hardware in June 2009

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo DS	766,500	684,000	+12.03%
  Nintendo Wii	361,700	350,000	+3.34%
  Xbox 360	240,600	210,000	+14.57%
  PLAYSTATION 3	164,700	170,000	-3.29%
  PlayStation Portable	163,500	133,300	+22.66%
  PlayStation 2	152,700	--	--
  Total Hardware Units (excludes PS2)	1,697,000	1,547,800	+9.64%

• US Software in June 2009

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Prototype (Xbox 360)	419,900	360,600	+29.59%
  2	UFC 2009: Undisputed (Xbox 360)	338,300	--	--
  3	EA Sports Active (Wii)	289,100	--	--
  4	Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (Wii)	272,400	268,600	+1.41%
  5	Wii Fit (Wii)	271,600	349,000	-22.18%
  6	Fight Night Round 4 (Xbox 360)	260,800	--	--
  7	Fight Night Round 4 (PS3)	210,300	--	--
  8	Mario Kart (Wii)	202,100	--	--
  9	Red Faction: Guerrilla (Xbox 360)	199,400	220,800	-9.69%
  10	Infamous (PS3)	192,700	148,700	+29.59%
  	Total Software Sales	$625.8M	$616.2M	+1.56%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	1,356,000	1,347,700	+0.62%

Where do the expected sales numbers come from?

The simExchange is the video game stock market. Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using fantasy money, players buy virtual stocks in video games they believe are under-predicting sales and short sell stocks they believe are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as "the Wisdom of the Crowd" and this system is known as a "prediction market." Sign up and play today.

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 is the final month we will be including Community Rankings. Going forward, we will only include individual trader rankings in our monthly reports. The Community Rankings table will no longer be available.

• June 2009 Top 5 Traders

  Rank	Name	% Change
  1	domzale2	+77.51%
  2	gossomer	+75.02%
  3	sunny22	+72.50%
  4	djneb	+58.90%
  5	treab	+58.22%

Check out the complete June 2009 rankings.

• June 2009 Community Rankings

  Rank	Community Name	% Change
  1	NeoGAF	+1.18%
  2	Cheap Ass Gamer	+1.15%
  3	Evil Avatar	+0.99%

You will be able to buy or short sell Global Lifetime Sales (GLS) Stocks and Metacritic Futures at a fixed price for 48 hours. This allows all players equal access to the stock's IPO regardless of the time they log on. After 48 hours, the futures will trade as normal. All players, regardless of Basic or Advanced trading mode, will be able to participate in the IPO. All players are limited to 250,000 DKP positions in the IPO phase.

Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360) and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will also have Metacritic Futures debuting on the same day as their GLS stocks.

If you want a game listed for trading, be sure to bid for it in the Unlisted Games section.

• GLS Stock & Metacritic Futures IPOs

  IPO Day	Title	Platform	Company	Submitter
  7/1	Modern Warfare 2	Xbox 360	Activision Blizzard	Joe80 & Necron101
  7/2	Modern Warfare 2	PS3	Activision Blizzard	-THE-RAY-
  7/3	Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker	PSP	Konami	Joe80 & PhilHarrision
  7/5	The Last Guardian	PS3	Sony Computer Entertainment	deftangel & SyrinxPriest

The following stocks are candidates for delisting. These stocks were chosen for delisting due to inactivity in the stock and/or lack of discussion for an extended period of time. Delisting stocks is necessary to unlock DKP for trading and concentrate DKP in the stocks people are trading.

All shares will cash out at the last traded price. This price is determined as the fair value as the market has not viewed the price as undervalued or overvalued for some time. These stocks will no longer appear when browsing the genres and platforms pages. You will still be able to view the stocks' pages by searching for the games.

If you feel any of the following should not be delisted due to an upcoming event (such as the game has not yet been released in all regions), please make a case and post in this forum by 11AM on Tuesday, June 30. A stock price that you are not happy with is not grounds for continued listing.

GLS Stocks pending delisting:
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360)
Lego Indiana Jones (Wii)
Lego Indiana Jones (PS3)
Madden NFL 09 (Xbox 360)
Madden NFL 09 (PS3)
Madden NFL 09 (Wii)
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS)
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (Xbox 360)
Spore Creatures (DS)
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
Tales of Vesperia (Xbox 360)
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)

August Monthly Sales Futures for software are making their debut tomorrow. Remember, there are new rules regarding Monthly Software Futures. If a game does not finish in NPD Group's Top 10, the game will cash out at the sales of the #10 title.

You will be able to buy or short sell the Futures and GLS stock at a fixed price for 48 hours. This allows all players equal access to the future's IPO regardless of the time they log on. After 48 hours, the futures will trade as normal. All players, regardless of Basic or Advanced trading mode, will be able to participate in the IPO. All players are limited to 250,000 DKP positions in the IPO phase.

Madden NFL 10 (Xbox 360), Madden NFL 10 (PS3), Wolfenstein (Xbox 360), and GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra (Xbox 360) will have GLS stocks IPOing on the same days as the futures. Wolfenstein (Xbox 360) GLS stock was suggested by necron101.

• August Monthly Sales Futures

  IPO Date	Title	Platform	Company	IPO Price
  6/26	Madden NFL 10	Xbox 360	Electronic Arts	80 DKP
  6/27	Madden NFL 10	PS3	Electronic Arts	50 DKP
  6/28	Batman: Arkham Asylum	Xbox 360	Electronic Arts	20 DKP
  6/29	Wolfenstein	Xbox 360	Activision Blizzard	20 DKP
  6/30	GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra	Xbox 360	Electronic Arts	20 DKP
  7/1	Wii Fit	Wii	Nintendo	40 DKP
  7/2	Wii Play	Wii	Nintendo	25 DKP

Video game hardware sales in May 2009 were in line with the market's low expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 1.33 million, inline with the market's expectation for 1.33 million units sold. The market appears to have priced in the effect of the recession after last month's disappointing sales. The Nintendo DS outsold expectations, making up for less than epected Wii and PSP sales. Xbox 360 and PS3 sold directly inline with market predictions.

Growth in video game software sales was once again negative year-over-year. Total video game software sales contracted another 17% from $540 million in May 2008 to $448.9 million. Traders on the simExchange prediction market expected $523.5 million in sales. Tracked software units sold directly in line, implying that unit sales were as expected but pricing was weaker. Anita Frazier of NPD Group commented: "Unit sales declined less than dollar sales did.  The dollar sales decline was exacerbated by a decline in average retail prices for almost all of the categories."

The star of May was clearly UFC 2009 Undisputed. The Xbox 360 version sold nearly twice as expected. New comer Wii Sports Active (Wii) also saw a strong opening. Frazier adds: "While there were some very strong new releases this month along with continued strong sales of evergreen games, this month's top 10 games sold 2.6 million units combined, whereas last year the top 10 sold 3.7 million units.  Again this illustrates how tough the comparisons are to last year."

Previewing June activity, Frazier remarks: "there are some promising games coming out this month between Sims 3 (PC), Prototype, Red Faction, Virtua Tennis, Ghostbusters, Transformers and Tiger Woods just to name a few.  At E3, it was notable how many games were targeted to the tween girl demographic, and this June will see a number of games introduced for girls as well.  June comparisons are still likely to be tough, but the wide variety of new content could help reinvigorate things somewhat."

The market also tracked the sales of Bionic Commando (Xbox 360), which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Future will cash out at 10.98 DKP.

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

• US Hardware in May 2009

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo DS	633,500	546,200	+15.98%
  Nintendo Wii	289,500	350,800	-17.47%
  Xbox 360	175,000	176,800	-1.02%
  PLAYSTATION 3	131,000	134,500	-2.60%
  PlayStation 2	117,000	--	--
  PlayStation Portable	100,400	125,800	-20.19%
  Total Hardware Units (excludes PS2)	1,329,400	1,334,100	-0.35%

• US Software in May 2009

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	UFC 2009 Undisputed (Xbox 360)	679,600	342,600	+98.37%
  2	Wii Fit (Wii)	352,800	407,400	-13.40%
  3	Wii Sports Active (Wii)	345,800	301,200	+14.81%
  4	UFC 2009 Undisputed (PS3)	334,400	--	--
  5	Infamous (PS3)	175,900	--	--
  6	Pokemon Platinum (DS)	168,900	--	--
  7	Mario Kart (Wii)	158,300	--	--
  8	Punch Out!! (Wii)	156,900	235,500	-33.38%
  9	X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged (Xbox 360)	120,700	144,000	-16.18%
  10	Wii Play (Wii)	109,800	201,300	-45.45%
  	Total Software Sales	$448.9M	$523.5M	-14.25%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	1,934.5M	1,953.2M	-0.96%

Where do the expected sales numbers come from?

The simExchange is the video game stock market. Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using fantasy money, players buy virtual stocks in video games they believe are under-predicting sales and short sell stocks they believe are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as "the Wisdom of the Crowd" and this system is known as a "prediction market." Sign up and play today.