Some info from The Japan Preview: 12/11/11 Edition (Monster Hunter 3DS, Skyrim)
"The other big story for next week will be Final Fantasy XIII. With only three days of preordering left, Final Fantasy XIII-2 has 330,000 preorders. In contrast, Final Fantasy XIII preorders reached 1,035,000 at the aligned point before launch. There is simply no way that the gap will be bridged between the two preorder rates over the next few days. Final Fantasy XIII-2 preorders look like they will reach 340,000 - 375,000 units in Japan on the eve of launch, compared to 1.1m for Final Fantasy XIII the day before it launched. For Final Fantasy XIII, week one figures ended up being 50% higher than preorder totals at this point out from launch. If that were to happen with Final Fantasy XIII-2, the game would sell a bit less than 500,000 units week one. Most Western impressions of the game were strong at E3 and Leipzig though, so my suspicion is word of mouth will be better for Final Fantasy XIII-2 than for Final Fantasy XIII, making an opening of anywhere 450,000 - 700,000 possible week one. Nonetheless, the game does look like it will perform far worse than its predecessor in Japan, which is rather striking as it isn't a spinoff or built like FInal Fantasy XI / Final Fantasy XIV."
