March Monthly Sales Futures for software are making their debut this week. 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. Games receiving Monthly Sales Futures are suggested by Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR). The games selected should have a 95% chance of making the Top 10 each month.

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.

• March Monthly Sales Futures

  IPO Date	Title	Platform	Company	IPO Price
  3/2	Wii Play	Wii	Nintendo	40 DKP
  3/3	Wii Fit	Wii	Nintendo	50 DKP
  3/4	Halo Wars	Xbox 360	Microsoft	100 DKP
  3/5	Resident Evil 5	Xbox 360	Capcom	100 DKP
  3/6	Resident Evil 5	PS3	Capcom	75 DKP
  3/7	Grand Theft Auto: China Town	DS	Take-Two	75 DKP

• February 2009 Top 5 Traders

  Rank	Name	% Change
  1	dorando	+56.99%
  2	cefenn	+44.66%
  3	yeohweihang	+44.07%
  4	djhellboy	+41.65%
  5	wrangler_smoked	+41.45%

Check out the complete February 2009 rankings.

• February 2009 Community Rankings

  Rank	Community Name	% Change
  1	NeoGAF	+2.12%
  2	Cheap Ass Gamer	+2.05%
  3	Evil Avatar	+0.68%

April Console Futures will be IPOing this week.

You will be able to buy or short sell the Futures 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.

• April Console Futures

  IPO Date	Title	Company	IPO Price
  3/2	Xbox 360	MSFT	32 DKP
  3/3	PLAYSTATION 3	Sony	21 DKP
  3/4	Wii	Nintendo	62 DKP
  3/5	Nintendo DS	Nintendo	51 DKP
  3/6	PlayStation Portable	Sony	18 DKP
  3/7	Total Software Sales	ALL	80 DKP

Video game hardware sales in January 2009 were inline with the market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 1,874,500, just 1.41% ahead of the market's expectation for 1,848,500 units sold.

Nintendo Wii and Sony PSP were the only surprises. The Wii sold 679,200 units well ahead of the market's expected 584,800 units. The PSP sold 172,300 units, below the expected 225,300 units.

The Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo DS all sold within 4% of expectations.

Growth in video game sales were slightly below expectations for January. Total video game software sales grew 10% from $614.7 million in January 2008 to $676.6 million. Traders on the simExchange prediction market expected $694.7 million.

The market also tracked the sales of Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360), which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Future will cash out at 11.3 DKP.

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

• US Hardware in January 2009

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo Wii	679,200	584,800	+16.14%
  Nintendo DS	510,800	528,700	-3.39%
  Xbox 360	309,000	299,000	+3.34%
  PLAYSTATION 3	203,200	210,700	-3.56%
  PlayStation Portable	172,300	225,300	-23.52%
  PlayStation 2	101,200	--	--
  Total Hardware Units	1,874,500	1,848,500	+1.41%

• US Software in January 2009

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Wii Fit (Wii)	777,000	665,300	+16.79%
  2	Wii Play (Wii)	415,000	359,300	+15.5%
  3	Mario Kart (Wii)	292,000	--	--
  4	Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360)	243,000	--	--
  5	Call of Duty: World At War (Xbox 360)	235,000	278,800	-15.71%
  6	Skate 2 (Xbox 360)	199,000	--	--
  7	Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii)	155,000	212,000	-26.89%
  8	New Super Mario Bros (DS)	135,000	--	--
  9	Mario Kart DS (DS)	132,000	--	--
  10	Lord of the Rings: Conquest (Xbox 360)	113,000	--	--
  	Total Software Sales	$676.6M	$694.7M	-2.61%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	1,582,000	1,515,400	+4.39%

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).

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
  2/8	Empire: Total War	PC	Sega	sasquatchxing
  2/9	Forza Motorsport 3	Xbox 360	Microsoft	-THE-RAY-
  2/10	Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 days	DS	Square Enix	shrimpjuice
  2/11	MadWorld	Wii	Sega	Refreshment
  2/12	MAG (Massive Action Game)	PS3	Sony	Joe80
  2/13	Monster Hunter 3	Wii	Capcom	Just_Ben
  2/14	Tom Clancy's HAWX	Xbox 360	Ubisoft	sagexsdx

Congratulations to wrangler_smoked for placing first in the month of January 2009 with a 47.51% return.

• January 2009 Top 5 Traders

  Rank	Name	% Change
  1	wrangler_smoked	+47.51%
  2	BrotherE	+46.63%
  3	necron101	+40.10%
  4	atedrow4	+36.48%
  5	vijac	+34.11%

Check out the complete January 2009 rankings.

• January 2009 Community Rankings

  Rank	Community Name	% Change
  1	NeoGAF	+2.36%
  2	Cheap Ass Gamer	+1.53%
  3	Evil Avatar	+0.33%

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
  2/2	Grand Theft Auto: China Town Wars	DS	Take-Two	kspraydad
  2/3	Pokemon Platinum	DS	Nintendo	Jonman
  2/4	BioShock 2	Xbox 360	Take-Two	lstormy
  2/5	Fatal Frame IV	Wii	Tecmo	Joe80
  2/6	Afrika	PS3	Sony	wompywomperson
  2/7	Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep	PSP	Square Enix	shrimpjuice

March Console Futures will be IPOing next week. Unlike the past, there will be only one console future debuting each day of the week. However, remember that February 2009 Monthly Sales Futures are also making IPOs next week.

You will be able to buy or short sell the Futures 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.

• March Console Futures

  IPO Date	Title	Company
  1/26	Xbox 360	MSFT
  1/27	PLAYSTATION 3	Sony
  1/28	Wii	Nintendo
  1/29	Nintendo DS	Nintendo
  1/30	PlayStation Portable	Sony
  1/31	Total Software Sales	ALL

February Monthly Sales Futures for software are making their debut next week. 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. Games receiving Monthly Sales Futures are suggested by Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR). The games selected should have a 95% chance of making the Top 10 each month.

Godfather II (Xbox 360) is also making a GLS stock IPO on Monday. The game was suggested by mrahaju.

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.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (Xbox 360) will also be IPOing as a GLS Stock and a February Monthly Sales Future. This IPO will occur on Sunday, January 25. The PS3 version will also receive a GLS stock. The game was suggested by Joe80 and kspraydad.

• February Monthly Sales Futures

  IPO Date	Title	Platform	Company
  1/25	F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin	Xbox 360	Warner Bros.
  1/26	Godfather II	Xbox 360	Electronic Arts
  1/27	Street Fighter IV	Xbox 360	Capcom
  1/28	Call of Duty: World at War	Xbox 360	EA
  1/29	Wii Fit	Wii	Nintendo
  1/30	Wii Play	Wii	Nintendo

As requested, the General Forum and the Help Forum now enable users to create custom threads. This should allow for more diverse conversations.

To start a new thread in the General Forum, go to the General Forum by using the "Channel" pull down menu on the left side of the Community section. Then click on "Start a new thread." Add the title of the thread and the comment of the post and hit submit. Thread titles are limited to 60 characters.

The main page for viewing discussion threads may get crowded, so we added filters in the Channel pull down menu. You can now view just the offical game threads or unlisted game threads through applying filters.

We also fixed some bugs. When posting comments to an official game thread, you will now be redirected to the thread, rather than an aggregation of comments on the game.

Still to come: Comments on Game pages will be reorganized into threads.

Please report any bugs you encounter. Feel free to offer suggestions and post feedback!