Just like in the USA not all stores take preorders in Japan, so the preorder data is scaled up from the retailer in the preliminary data, just as weekly sales data is.
But I've been doing some research on the preorder data with some big games:
Galaxy got to a reservation level 25% below week one sales by scaling the prelim data
Brawl and DMC4 were 20% below week one sales as well.
A quick look shows that among games to sell over 100k, week one sales on VGC/MC/Famitsu tend to equal 1.2x the scaled preorder data in Japan from the prelim data.
So with MGS4 at 203k or so now in scaled preorders it should do at least 240k week one if supply is there...
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
