the two regions are comparable in games that have a universal fanbase such as fps and rpgs, but the hack and slash series is a very American one. I can't explain the sold out situation. Maybe the game sold really well in Germany or they didn't order enough games to stock. Regardless since the game is great and living up to expectations to many, it should have good legs due to word of mouth.
I also think the huge wave of games that came out from the same genre affected sales of people who had not bought the first or second game and and just bought Bayanotte, Darksiders, or Dante's Inferno, rather then god of war 3.

@mOeR-rpGee
I am speaking of Europe sales only. A lot of people seemed to believe the game would have nearly even sales in Others as in Americas. It was obviously going to do better then the second, the second being released after the new consoles came out. And many PS3 fans predicted 1-1.5mil. It defenitly wasn't close to 95% for 800k-1mil. More like 50%-50% between the 2 predictions.

according to ioi the game did over a million excluding Japan so far.. what are you smoking?

ioi, r we not going to get an article on GOWIII? So final figure is more like 1.3 - 1.4 million or more like 1 million>?

no numbers. :(

GOW III may does over 450k since Uncharted 2 did 380k first week.

u r talking Europe Only? how it will do more than U2 when U2 i think did more than 100k first week in UK