Game: 500,000 Units first week (ala Gears of War)
Hardware: 200,000 Units (around a 75% increase YOY)
Now, as for worldwide total cume. Call me insane, but I see Mass Effect doing really, really well. Two Worlds is doing just insane (probably around 300-350k worldwide now), and has a below-60% ranking.
Also, Oblivion is already 10% above Morrowinds entire LTD total, despite the GOTY just coming out 2 weeks ago. And having said this, KOTOR did quite a bit better (100k) than Morrowind.
I see Mass Effect doing 3 million units+ for the following reasons:
#1. It will have rather broad appeal. It's sci-fi, which is a plus, has a great name brand and developer hype/media hype. It will sell well in Japan (100k), which always helps.
#2. It's basically the must-have game of Christmas 2007 for the X360 along with H3, Bioshock and COD4, but has the advantage of being the closest to Christmas (I think it'll take the X360 s/w #1 crown in the month of December).
#3. It doesn't have the Star Wars stigma attached to it. Don't get me wrong, everyone loves to spend $10 to see chewie and Han Solo blow something up, but spending $60 on a Star Wars game for alot of people might seem.....Nerdy. Having a great game like ME in a sci-fi neutral world will do it good.
So I say no less than 3m w/w, with sales being around 2.05m in the US, 850k in PAL, and 100k in Japan....If not more per region. Could top out at 4m, and get close to GOW.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
