If any cuts are made out of a gamer's holiday budget, it will be those titles that they could do without: games like Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, which is an awesome game with great branding qualities. However, it simply does not stack up against the large list of AAA titles this holiday season.

Others include: Need for Speed Undercover (which has become a stale brand as of late), Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, and any other title that squeaks by with quality scores below 80 percent.

As consumers become more judicious with their discretionary income this holiday season, quality scores will likely have a bigger weight on a gamer's purchasing decision than in previous holidays.

And here's a word from your favorite analyst and mine, Michael Pachter!

I'd say that the worst positioned are Midnight Club: Los Angeles, Shaun White Snowboarding (the Wii version will do well, but is constrained by Wii Fit boards; the PS3 and 360 versions are not positioned well), Tomb Raider Underworld (a great franchise, but flying under the radar this holiday), and Animal Crossing: City Folk.

The last is a great franchise, but the Wii audience is dominated by the mass-market audience, and Animal Crossing is somewhat more hardcore than most Nintendo titles. I think that the game will do very well, but will likely be disappointing, relative to expectations.

Well that's ironic. The Wii finally sees a hardcore game and it'll bomb? I'd say it's a hardcore casual game, so it'd still sell like.. well, Wiis.

Via Gamasutra