Where have all the Christmas games gone? They’ve all hopped off to enjoy the lucrative springtime calendar. Whilst gamers everywhere are left salivating for 2009’s altogether slimmer seasonal pickings, headlined by juggernauts like Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2, developers everywhere are packing up and shipping off to the greener pastures of early 2010. It’s no bad thing, either.

This isn’t news to Capcom. Actually, the Japanese publisher has been in on the game for some time. Released in March this year, Resident Evil 5 sold 1.52 million units in its first month, the best launch numbers the popular zombie-stomping series has seen to date, and in a month where game sales were down 17% from the year before. The venerable Street Fighter IV sold just under a million copies in February, an impressive figure for an increasingly niche genre. Casting our minds back a further year, Devil May Cry 4’s lukewarm reception didn’t stop it shifting over half a million units in February 2008, and even 360-exclusive snore-fest Lost Planet managed to flog 330,000 units in January 2007. These numbers pale in comparison to the likes of Call of Duty 4 (2m units in November 2007 and lifetime sales of 7.7m) and Wii Fit (678k in its first month and lifetimes sales of 9.3m). Nonetheless, the figures are still solid and certainly respectable considering Capcom’s games aren’t quite as favored by the mass market, and I doubt Capcom was anything but chuffed.

Street Fighter IV was more successful than expected for a game from a niche genre

Undoubtedly the industry was forced to take action after the cautionary aftermath of 2008’s overloaded holiday season. Notable titles like Dead Space (263k), Tomb Raider: Underworld (246k) and Prince of Persia (483k) performed far below expectations despite favorable reviews and fervent advertising campaigns. Moving titles like these into the less crowded part of the year allows publishers to tighten to tighten the purse strings of advertising, yet more effectively promote their upcoming titles.

Sales charts for the past few holiday seasons read like a gentleman’s club for the highest-profile releases, with customary appearances from plastic band software and Wii Play. Since 2006, most of the few, seasonal success stories have come from Wii software. Midway’s Carnival Games has proven prosperous: despite not finding its way into any of the Top 20 NPD lists, it’s frequently been‘inculded in retail bundles, so it’s subsequently enjoyed high lifetime sales of 1.84m, a lofty number that’s all the sweeter for its low development costs. Success stories like Carnival Games have, perhaps ironically, led to a glut of bargain-priced family software for the Wii.

Back in the here and now, and the shoddy economic conditions of 2009 aren’t helping matters. Hardware sales have been down for most of the year, albeit with the the PS3 Slim’s release and the 360’s price cut helping to turn the tide. With companies doing their best to offset costs at every opportunity, spreading their catalog out across the year is a golden opportunity to try something new.

*all figures from NPD data, with multiple console figures collated when possible, and are specific to the USA.