Every year the pre-order chart for the holiday season is quite interesting to see. They cause a lot of speculation. It seems the big brand titles sell more and more every year. This year Gears of War 3, Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 top the list of the chart. And it seems at least two of them are going to break some records. It’s very interesting to see the chart for Gears of War 3 compared to Halo: reach. Because there are still 9 weeks left anything could happen, but it seems likely that Gears of War 3 will break the record for being the highest pre-ordered game for the Xbox 360 so far. I’m going to make a bold statement by saying that Gears of War 3 might even sell more games in the first month (or heck, maybe even in the first week), than the Gears of War 2 did so far (6,096,145 = 3 years of sales).

Let me explain why I predict this. Pre-orders tend to go faster the closer the game get’s to its launch date. If Gears of War 3 does the same thing as Halo: Reach in the last 9 weeks, more than 1,5 million copies of Gears 3 will be added to the number of 1,191,301 pre-orders right now in the USA. Seeing as Gears 3 pre-orders are already outselling Halo: reach quite a bit, it might be possible that Gears of War 3 will add even more pre-orders. But let’s just say for now it adds “only” 1,5 million these last 9 weeks. 1,191,301 + 1,500,000 = 2,691,301. These are pre-orders alone.

So when predicting the first week in USA, pre-orders times 1.5 is a safe prediction (i.e.: Halo: reach pre-orders 1^st week sales were 3.056M/1.992M (pre-orders) = 1.53; CoD:BO : 4M(1^st week)/1.8M (pre-orders)= 2.22; GT5:  588K(1^st week)/281K (pre-orders)= 2.09).  2,691,301 x 1.5 = 4,036,952.

EMEAA is a bit trickier to predict, since there amount of pre-orders is unknown. Also, some games do better in EMEAA than in the USA (i.e. GT5) but most of them sell less than the USA. I think it’s the safest bet to look at Gears of War 2 to see what the popularity of the game is in EMEAA. Gears of War 2 sold 3.89M (1.31M 1^st week) in USA compared to in 590K(2.15 1^st week) in EMEAA. Let’s say it sell about twice as well in the USA compared to EMEAA. So when you take the predicted first week in USA and divide it by 2 you get the following: 4,036,952 /2 = 2,018,476.

Adding both territories up and take an extra 50K from Japan (rough estimation of 1^st week): 4,036,952 + 2,018,476 + 50K = 6,105,428. I think it’s quite safe to say that Gears 3 will outsell Gears 2 (lifetime sales) in a month, maybe even in the first week.What's your guess?

Nope.

You shouldn't waste too much time with preorder charts anyway since they are about as reliable as whatever your favourite random number generator can come up with.

Gears of War 3 may be posting massive pre-order numbers, but it won't outsell Gears 2 in a month, I think it'll happen in early 2013, but I had to say 2012 in the voting system as it was the closest

Not going to happen. Gears of War 3 is the only AAA xbox exclusive releasing in the next 12 months. Gears 3 is bound to be the best selling Gears game to date, but it will take a couple year to reach Gears 2 lifetime totals. Gears 2 only recenty hit 6 million.

lmao NO. People here are overexaggerating gears numbers. I remember fable 3 story with preorders, can it do 6,7 million, omg, omfg.....nope.
- i got strong felling these gears numbers are not accurate or overtracked if u want. MS announcement were 100% retailer preorders.
- it ll not have similar last weeks to halo
- people who preorder gears in most cases are hardcore gears players who played last two
- judging by beta stats( average time play per player) there are many who were not satisfied by mp
- i can see it doing 6,7 millions again at best. U say first week or month with so packed holidays compared to 2008 when it virtualy had no competition???? just lol
- in any game is going to break records its mw3

its not a good idea making predictions based on these pre order numbers.

some good points. dont know why people get so over exaggerative here. gears WILL NOT sell 5 million first week. its not THAT big.

MS announcement was 3 months ago. When MS made the 1mill announcement Vgchartz had gears america preorders at 600,000. How can they be overtracked if they are matching up with MS numbers?

Sure, and it will sell 20 millions after one year.