One week may not matter much to some people, but for the gaming industry, one week makes all the difference. According to financial analysts, since this year's January only has four weeks compared to 2007s' five-week January, the industry lost a potential 18 percent increase in profits.

According to Jesse Divnich of simExchange, a fifth week in this year's January would have meant that the gaming industry will yield a sales total of US$ 648 million, as opposed to the projected sales number of US$ 519 million for January 2008. 

Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets noted that software sales for this month will only be slightly up, also due to the fact that January 2008 only has four weeks. Games that are slated to be the top January performers are (drumroll) Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Play, Call of Duty 4 (PC, Xbox 360, PS3), Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PS3, PC), and Rock Band (Xbox 360, PS3, PS2).

As for hardware sales, Nintendo's Wii console still has problems with supply, while Microsoft's Xbox 360 also has tight supply numbers due to the console replacement program stemming from repeated console failures.