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I think that the wording in what he said defines it as customer preorders.
"preorders for Metal Gear Solid 4 in Japan are slowly edging toward 200,000 units, with nine-ten days left to reserve the game"
Retail preorders aren't something we calculate, but are instead usually figures given in some kind of press release or w/e, so saying that the preorders are edging towards something indicates that we've been tracking this number, which is true of customer preorders since those have been talked about before.
Also it says there are 9-10 days left to reserve the game, which is 9-10 days for customers to reserve. Retailers couldn't possibly preorder their copies a day before the release.
Anyway, that's my argument for why it's customer and not retail figures.
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