It seems that people are telling you that it's not a system seller but they don't go into too much detail as to why.

First you need to understand the state of the industry for the last 5 years.Here are some articles to shed a little light.

http://thewiikly.zogdog.com/author.php?author=8

And more by the same author if you have the time.

http://malstrom.50webs.com/index.htm

Do you really think it didn't move consoles or did you post this thread to troll? MGS4 did move a significant number of consoles for the week it released and is on it's way to selling 4 -5 million copies as many of us predicted.

Regarding the Sony can't be saved by x-game nonsense. Just stop. Sony will outsell the 360 by a substantial margin this year at a significantly higher price point. Also, they have a number of software releases in 2008/2009 that will bring in significant revenue. MGS4 is just another brick in the wall.

mgs4 is a title on the shelf that some one would make a purchase for. its only been out a few weeks and everyones claiming doom lol

It's not so much that MGS4 failed to move consoles; it's that it moved many of those consoles long before it was ever released.

Go anywhere that gamers gather, and look at the records of old discussions from before MGS4's release. Go back as far as you can. Even around the time of the PS3's release, MGS4 was stated as one of the top reasons that people were buying PS3s (FFXIII and GTA4 were the other most common reasons: again, from long before the games were released). These games hadn't even been released yet, but people bought them almost as if they were investments: get it now, enjoy your games later.

This behavior wasn't unique to the PS3, though. XBox 360 users did it too, with Halo and GTA4 being common reasons that people bought consoles before these games were even released. The results were predictable: when the games were released, there was a quick boost in hardware sales, but then a crash back to about the levels they'd been before. It's not that these games failed to bump sales permanently, but that the bump had already happened long before. This is great for early console sales, but it means that the era of the system-seller game is over. You can no longer reliably track beyond the couple of weeks surrounding the system's release exactly what increases are due to what blockbuster games.

Except, that is, on the Wii. For some reason, Wii users don't do this. They wait for their favorite games before buying the console, just as console buyers used to do in previous generations. Again, go anywhere gamers gather and look at the records of old discussions: people waited for MP3, then they waited for SMG, then they waited for Brawl and MK:Wii.

But this all leads to yet more questions. Why did gamers shift to console-as-investment on the HD consoles? Why didn't they shift to this behavior pattern on the Wii? I don't know. It would be interesting to find out.

I think BC in EU is what Sony needs even at the current pricepoint.

@TheSource

PS3 is only short of games to carry its weight if you're only considering PS3 games.
If you include the fact that some PS3's like mine can play the entire playstation console family of games then that PS3 shits on both the wii and 360.
All the wii fans "who don't care about graphics" should be able to play the countless PS2/PS1 games they've missed with a BC ps3 along with the new potential games

To cut the long story short, BC PS3 (especially if you don't have a ps2 or if you have an aging ps2)>>>>>>>>>>>x360/wii.

This is why the 80 gb is needed in EU ASAP because that is sony's stronghold. They need the 80gb in EU more than NA because the x360's lead in NA is unassailable in NA but they could reach a 2:1 point PS3:360 ratio in EU.

Yeah... I mean I thought MGS4 did more then expecting at least in Japan.

It has a chance to play a decent second instead of a "would be called dead in japan if it wasn't for the 360."

Sales went up quite a lot though. Enough to safely beat the 360, anyway.

Oh, and you don't need me to tell you about MGS4s greatness. Clearly Xbox360 fans being desperate for the game proves that MGS4 sure beats anything the 360 has to offer.

And console sales went up 700% in Japan and 180% in America (on the first week). That's impressive!

Perhaps Metal Gear Solid and the rest of the much publicized games are making a difference.

Maybe it's just that we have a very harsh measuring stick (wii) to compare X360 and PS3 to.

Case in point: Take a look at Grand Theft Auto IV debut week. Both consoles got an amazing boost, selling more than 90,000 systems each (PS3 almost cracked 100k). But wii outsold them both combined, selling over 400k that very week (it was also Mario Kart week).

I think having an outstanding game such as MGS4 can only have a positive impact for PS3. It's still too early to measure the game's long-term legs, but I think it'll sell fine. As far as console sales go, Source's weight lifter analogy may be accurate. Snake cannot lift Playstation on his back all by himself. He's gonna need quite a bit of help. He's probably screaming for Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy to come help him ASAP as we speak...

shipped =/= sold.  that is why it isn't listed at 3 million on this site.  not that konami cares to much.  those retailers had to pay konami for the game, we pay the retailers.