I will update if I see other interesting comparisons and feel like it. If others want to offer comparisons, I'd be happy to edit them into the OP when I see them. I don't think there needs to be a new thread for EU sales, JP sales, or week 2 sales. The point of emphasising "launch" is that I figured it's best to compare with games that released around the same time in the Wii's life - so no comparing NSMB U with NSMB Wii regarding early sales.

So what you're saying is that it's not possible for Black Ops 2 on the Wii U to outsell Call of Duty 3 on the Wii?

I can accept people being skeptical about it making 4 million. But surely surpassing all Wii CoD titles is a reasonable possibility, especially since its first-week sales have easily outpaced any Wii CoD title.

Just thought I'd back up that observation.

CoD3 on PS3 in the US sold just 12,298 copies in its first week, and another 13,071 copies in its second week. By the end of 2006, it managed 113,977... and went on to sell 1.36 million copies worldwide, including 481,507 in the US to date.

By comparison, on the Wii, it sold 43,534 copies in its first week and another 21,483 in its second week. By the end of 2006, it sold 156,095 copies, and sold 2.16 million copies worldwide, including 1,033,521 in the US to date.

It doesn't matter what console it is, you expect weak launch sales for games that release with the system, relatively speaking. It would be interesting, by the way, to look at the correlations between launch date, launch sales, and total sales.

That`s a good point of view.
Everyone knows that launch software always starts low but these titles end up selling very well afterwards. Even the bad games end up selling well because people want the console even if at the cost of buying bad games along with it.

That`s why Ubisoft started strong on Wii and Wii U from the get go. They know people will be more open to their titles that way.

Personally what i expect is not just that BO2, ZombiU, AC3 and others too sell well in years to come but to build a fan base strong enough to embrace future titles of the franchise and, seeing as new consoles are to arrive next year, to take advantage of that and provide, for instance, a better online community that those consoles won`t be able to provide from day one.

OK, so there's not quite enough information yet to do a proper comparison for European week 1 data (we only have UK and German game sales, and VGChartz doesn't have EU country breakdown data from 2006), but I thought I'd look at what I could now from what's already there.

Now, the first observation is that the Wii U in Europe had a much smaller first week than the Wii had. I'm not sure why, but there's a few bits of information that may help.

Wii U: 73,757 units (2 days)
Wii: 321,565 units (2 days)
360: 231,802 units (9 days? Released on Dec 2, but no sales for week ending Dec 3, only for Dec 10)

I included 360 to try to understand what happens with European launch sales, typically. But without first-week information, the comparison is imperfect. If we suppose that the first two days for 360 encompass, say, 30-40% of sales from the first 9 days, then it accounts for 69,541-92,721 units, suggesting that the Wii U may be selling comparably to the 360 in Europe for the first two days.

It's still disappointing, but it does seem to be a little less depressing once you've seen that. The Wii managed a lot more, but perhaps that's just a matter of shipping more. Guess we'll have to wait to see the rest of 2012's sales to get a better idea.

Beyond that, the lack of full European software data means we can't do a proper comparison, but there's one interesting comparison we can make right now:

Top-selling third-party title?

ZombiU (UK): 16,395 copies sold
ZombiU (DE): 8,485 copies sold
ZombiU (UK+DE): 24,880 copies sold
Call of Duty 3 (EU): 17,659 copies sold

So even with only UK and Germany data, ZombiU is easily outselling third-party launch Wii titles in Europe. Considering the lower system sales, that's quite an achievement. I would also do a quick comparison with 360 launch titles, but VGChartz doesn't seem to have 360 sales data for Europe in 2005. This will be an interesting comparison for Europe-wide sales data.

I'd also compare Need for Speed: Carbon with Sonic and Sega Racing, but the latter doesn't have any solid numbers right now.

ZombiU has been heavily promoted ever since that video before E3. Some comments that i have been reading on Miiverse point out that people think it`s better than some reviews led them to believe.
As Iwata said, Miiverse will also serve to spread the word about the games and that sales can reflect that.

I think Nintendo opted to sacrifice Europe given the low number of manufactured units.

OK, VGChartz's front page information on Wii U sales in Europe were wrong, it turns out (EDIT: It seems to have since been updated, apparently Wii and Wii U numbers were switched by mistake). In fact, it was out by about 100,000. If you look at the European chart page, it has an updated number. So let's do a better comparison...

Wii U: 178,615 units (2 days)
Wii: 321,565 units (2 days)
360: 231,802 units (9 days? Released on Dec 2, but no sales for week ending Dec 3, only for Dec 10)

So while the Wii U didn't sell as many as the Wii did, the numbers are much more reasonable, and seem like a reasonable balance when compared with US sales (factoring in that US sales are for a full week, while EU sales are for two days).

So let's see what comparisons we can make for Europe...

New Super Mario Bros U vs Twilight Princess (Big franchise Nintendo IP battle)

NSMB U: 90,507 copies
Twilight Princess: 201,810 copies

While NSMB U has sold significantly fewer, like in the US, the cause is different. If one considers the attach rates involved, here's what we get... NSMB U (68% in US, 51% in EU) vs Twilight Princess (89% in US, 63% in EU). The significant thing here is that, whereas there's a massively high attach rate for TP in the US, the NSMB U and TP attach ratios in Europe are far more similar, in the vicinity of 50%.

ZombiU vs Red Steel (Third-party new IP from Ubisoft that shows promise)

... unfortunately, this comparison can't be made, because VGChartz's data for Red Steel in Europe prior to 2011 has been lost, and I can't find any other source. If someone can find information on EU Red Steel week 1 sales, I'd be appreciative. But just to note it down and discuss relative to US...

ZombiU: 52,922 copies

While it hasn't sold as well in Europe as in America, it has done better with regards to attach rate. Also interesting is the observation that UK and Germany constitute less than half of total EU sales of the game.

Still waiting on complete information for further comparisons. A CoD comparison would be nice. We can do a bit of minor comparison by looking at recent sales numbers in Europe for titles in the vicinity of BO2. So here's what we can see...

Call of Duty 3: 17,659 copies

X-Com PC (two above BO2 WiiU) sold 7,029 in previous week (slight downwards trend)
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Vita (immediately above BO2 WiiU) sold 17,339 in previous week (first week)
Borderlands 2 PS3 (immediately below BO2 WiiU) sold 11,864 in previous week (downwards trend)
NBA 2K13 PS3 (two below BO2 WiiU) sold 8,044 in previous week (upwards trend)
Borderlands 2 360 (three below BO2 WiiU) sold 11,615 in previous week (downwards trend)

Based on numbers available, it looks like Black Ops 2 has sold about 10,000 or so copies, so it's underperforming compared with CoD3 at Wii launch in Europe. This may be due to lower Wii U system sales, as the attach rates would be similar.

Where did you get your Black Ops 2 sales from? Vgchartz has it at 51k for week 1 which I'm pretty sure is overtracked since NPD had it at about 21k-ish.

Your prediction.....
"So Black Ops II has had a good start in the US, based on history. My resulting worldwide prediction for BO2 WiiU? 4 million."

Really dude? Even if you were talking worldwide sales that is just not going to happen.

It's the data that was listed at the time. It has since been changed.

Anyway, I wouldn't assume that NPD is more accurate. As I recall, one of NPD's weaknesses is that they don't track certain retailers, such as Walmart (from memory).

Anyway, I don't see any NPD numbers for Black Ops 2, I see Pachter making a claim about attach rate, which has been combined with NPD numbers for system sales to determine the approximate amount. If you can find something more solid than Pachter, I might listen, but Pachter isn't a trustworthy source of anything. I easily trust VGChartz's numbers over Pachter's claim regarding attach rate.

By the way, a quick check of your "Games Collection" reveals that you play PS exclusively. So I'm really not interested in your opinion of how well BO2 can sell on the Wii U. You couldn't even manage to see the explicit phrase "my resulting worldwide prediction". So here's my advice - if you can't permit different opinions from yours without ridicule, and you have no interest in playing Wii U, maybe just stay away from threads that have nothing to do with your interests.

First of all, I can participate in any fucking thread I want. Deal with it. I follow the entire video game industry, not just Playstation.

Secondly, NPD started tracking Walmart back in July. Before that, they estimated. So you're being a bit of a hypocrite for critizing NPD estimating Walmart sales since ALL Vgchartz does IS estimates.....lmfao.

Last of all I just want to say....grow up. People will disagree with your opinions, this is a forum.  I "permit" you to have your opinions, I just disagree with them. And what's this about "ridicule"? Did I make fun of you or something by disagreeing? 

You can't make direct comparisons or estimates between Wii and Wii U launch titles. It is highly unlikely that Wii U will end up being as successful as the original Wii so that right there is MY reason for thinking Black Ops 2 won't reach 4 million LT.