It should easilly sell more than 200,000-400,000. Even little known niche games like LKS, No More Heroes, and Mad World are at those numbers or on a track to them.

I think 1 million between the US and Europe is a safe bet, and that's worst case scenario.

I can't wait to see howthis game will sell in the end, 1 Million comibed USA and others is do-able I think, meaning it will sell over 2,000,000 LTD, nice!

Eh, what sort of "foothold" would you expect sprite based remakes of 1990s Dragon Quests to make exactly?  SE barely promoted them, I wouldn't take them as any sort of indication of what either Nintendo or Dragon Quest IX are capable of...

And honestly, the only DQs that SE has at all pushed in the west (DQVIII, DQMJ) did pretty well.  The rest were sent to die (DQ4, DQ5, Rocket Slime).

There's already been 4 Dragon Quest titles released on the DS.  That's what I was basing my views on.  Hopefully Dragon Quest IX will be able to change things, since Nintendo is going to finally be giving the series the advertising SquareEnix hasn't.

for wii games, the preorders are a good sign. I dont think capcom has Unreasonable huge expectations for a non western franchise making its true debut.They expect maybe 500 000 or something in the first months.They have been on the wii long enough to guess fairly well.

The game (from what I hear) is pretty tough to pick up, so the steep learning curve will push many customers away.

However, it does have 28k preorders with 7 weeks left. The demos (the ones that Gamestop actually allowed to be given) should cause the numbers to rise a bit this week too. If Capcom does indeed drop those Scottish guy commercials, the preorder amount should increase substantially. They have to air them at least 2 weeks-10 days before the game comes though; 2 weeks notice gives people time to think of the purchase.

As for what I think it will do first week in America and lifetime in Amer......
First Week:97k
Lifetime:...560k

Well I do think it is shaping up to be a much bigger hit than expected. And with the demo circulating at Gamestop and eventual advance advertising at the other retailers, we could see a much larger opening in the region. Originally, I was thinking 50k-100k range, but now I'm looking as high as a 150k-200k opener for the game. Definitely will be good for the series and allow more to really be a hit over here. Also expect it to do well in the long run.

But really, I see this franchise becoming more of a breakout hit in Europe. I really think this title has the ability to be a bigger hit there than America. I think Capcom and especially Nintendo knows this and why there is already an aggressive campaign in the areas to get the word out. So as big of the strides being made to get the game more popular in America, i think we'll see an even bigger explosion in Europe. Definitely going to be one of Wii's biggest releases of the year, rather than the usual throwaway that we've been seeing from other "big" Wii games.

been watching this game since it was first announced and though not having any prior history or experience with the game, I've become increasingly interested over time.

So, given the opportunity I went out and paid for it yesterday and got the free demo.  Only had about 15 min to toy with it last night, but it really got me excited.  Its a beautiful looking game visually and the concept feels really fresh and fun (to me at any rate).  I musta laughed my ass of for a good 10 min after I realized I could kick these cat like creatures and piss them off!  (when my buddy has had a bad day he jokes that hes gonna go home and kick the cat...and now I can too)

A nice bonus to the purchase is that by pre-ordering the game/controller bundle I got 5 bucks off..and then at pick-up ya also get a 500 wii point card.  So, it's 59 bucks (including tax) for a game, blk classic controller pro and 500 point card and a demo disc.  Thats a freakin WIN!

I personally don't see how anyone could go wrong by picking this game up...with all that and online multiplayer and speak compatibility, well, you get my point.

I asked the guys at Gamestop when I picked up the demo if they'd given out a lot of them, and they said they'd given out quite a few and that a pretty good portion of the people who picked up the demo either pre-ordered then or came back and pre-ordered it soon after, so I think that's a good sign...

I really hope this game does well, because it would really be the final nail in the coffin to the "Wii doesn't sell hardcore games" arguments. They would officially have no more excuses to write off its success.

They can't use the "well it's a Nintendo game excuse" or the "well it's already a major well known franchise" like RE4 and COD: Reflex, since it's not well known outside Japan. Nor can they use the kiddie game excuse.