Maybe it's hard to impress him?

Jack Tretton is wrong. I have SOOO Many Goosebumps that change depending on my choices. Theres lyke 99 ways to die in every book but only 1 way to survive...

OT: I think he means this game will sell well for being so niche in a expiermental genre. Indigo Prophecy was underrated anddidn't have mainstream attention but this game will push this niche genre into decent sales overall and great for what it is.

Maybe not? That or it has to sell like 10mil+ copies to sell incredibly well to him. But really I agree that it was a stupid comment to make since lots of good games sell really well.

got the hmv edition today, im impressed, i hope it does fairly well

I think this type of game will be huge but I'm not sure if Heavy Rain will be. It will certainly be a big seller as in 1-3 million for sure. But I think there might be some other games that follow Heavy Rains footsteps and they will sell average at best until one game manages to grab on with the main stream and become the next big hit franchise like GTA and COD/MW.

Oh his comment in context is both vague and optimistic, there's no doubt about that.  Spin all the way.  I was more commenting on how his speech patterns always amuse me.  He reminds me of how Shatner delivers dialogue at times, full of odd pauses and emphasis on what feels like the wrong word.

Without qualification 'extremely well' is setting the game up for a fall I think, depending upon how you chose to judge that as you say.  For me extremely well is at least 4M in general terms unless qualified for the genre.  For example if Heavy Rain sold 1.5 M I'd consider that extremely well for Heavy Rain, but not a big FPS.

But really, I never put much credence into statements by any of these guys.  They're paid to push a certain message, which I understand fully, and as such I know there is little point putting any faith in anything they say.

Take Natal and Arc - both are very risky moves, but you won't hear anyone from MS or Sony mentioning the risk element at all, the focus will be on expectations and talking up the optimistic side.  Understandable, but just marketing noise in the end.

What i find funny is how people change the figures to suit certain games in terms of what they classify as "selling loads".
Some people have said selling 1m for this game = selling loads.

Surely all sales for video games have to be compared to each other?

Like for example some will say a RPG shouldnt sell that much as it is not a maintream shooter. But hang on the FF series, the Fallout series and so on and have sold many many millions, meaning RPGs have the potential to sell millions. Obviously shooters will sell millions.

Now this is an adventure game. A game that style has been done before, it is nothing new despite good old Jacks claims they are. But for sake of argument lets just leave it in the adventure genre.

So in comparison to other adventure games what would be considered selling loads?
Drakes Fortune sold millions, Lego Batman has sold millions, Heavenly sword sold millions, kung fu panda sold millions, marvel ultimate alliance sold millions etc etc

This game has taken ages to make, has spent a fortune on making it and has a big advertising campaign behind it.

To say this game has done well by getting to 1million in my opinion is a cop out. It should sell well beyond 2m in a year or it has bombed.

The reality is there are over 30m PS3's out there, if not even 1% wanted to play it then that says something about the appeal of the game to people. The fact that it is not popular doe not make it a bad game, it just makes it not a desired game.
Personally i think this game should sell around 500k in its first week at bare minimum or it has bombed.

Short answer.  No.

The reason is that different genres have different potential limits, just like films, and therefore performance is judged against that.  I just saw a french film the other night A Prophet, that was fantastic, but of course it has no chance of outperforming a Hollywood blockbuster (even though it's actually superior to most of those easily).

It's the same for games.  Would you expect a niche title to sell as much as MW2?  Of course not.  That's why you can't sensibly compare all video games to each other.  You can of course if you want, but it's a meaningless comparison.  Genres and game themes/content limit their potential demand base just like films.  Do you think United 93 when it released in the cinema had exactly the same potential demand as Avatar did recently?

Also, when people are calling this an adventure game they mean the original genre reference, not Lara Croft, Uncharted, etc. but point and click adventure games.

The money spent on the game is moot (other than obviously potentially limiting it's profitability) in terms of how much it will or should sell for it's genre.

I could spend $100 Million on an incredibly niche title - doesn't mean squat for the potential demand base.

Just read the black text of each post and I 100% agree with what reasonable said and 100% disagree with hyruken.

I'd also like hyruken to provide facts of how much it took to make and where the huge advertising behind it is.

im not so sure but either way, right now sony are very happy, they only have one of the biggest games releasing in a few weeks, evryones taking about sony, right now the attention is on them. according to keighley, we havnt seen shit yet! theres more to come from sony yet.