I thought it would be interesting to see what the ratios for pre-orders vs first week worldwide sales would be.  This way we can look at past titles on each system and have a better idea of what future titles may do in their first week.

Every week i will be updating as new games release.

NOTES:

1. I will NOT be adding games to this list that had higher US pre-orders then 1st week sales in America.

2. When you see a hyper link on the worldwide numbers that means the game had a staggered launch.

3. Vgchartz pre-order numbers are not as accurate as the sales numbers so take them with a grain of salt.

4. Games that open up with worldwide sales of less then 40,000 will not be added to this list.

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Game releases for the week of September 4th

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Metroid: Other M (action)

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 Recent releases

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1. Mafia II (sandbox/action)

2. Madden NFL 11 (sports)

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Upcoming game releases

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 Past releases by month.

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Releases in July 2010

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1. NCAA Football 11 (sports)

2. Crackdown 2 (action)

3. LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Adventure)

4. Sin and Punishment: Star Successor (shooter)

5. Sniper: Ghost Warrior (FPS)

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Releases in June 2010

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1. Transformers: War for Cybertron (Action)

2. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 (sports)

3. Green Day: Rock Band (Rhythm)

4. Alpha Protocol (RPG)

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Releases in May 2010

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1. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (platformer)

2. UFC Undisputed 2010 (fighter)

3. Modnation Racers (racer)

4. Red Dead Redemption (action)

5. Alan Wake (action)

6. Split Second (racer)

7. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (action)

8. Lost Planet 2 (TPS)

9. Skate 3 (sports)

10. 3D Dot Game Hereos (RPG)

11. Super Street Fighter IV (fighter)

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Releases in April 2010

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1. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction (TPS)

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Releases in March 2010

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1. Just Cause 2 (action)

2. Red Steel 2 (FPS)

3. God of War III (action)

4. METRO 2033 (FPS)

5. Final Fantasy XIII (RPG)

6. Yakuza 3 (adventure)

7. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (FPS)

8. MLB 10: The Show (sports)

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 Release in February 2010

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1. Heavy Rain (adventure)

2. Endless Ocean: Blue World (sim)

3. Aliens vs Predator (FPS)

4. Bioshock 2 (FPS)

5. White Knight Chronicles: International Edition (RPG)

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Releases in January 2010

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1. Mass Effect 2 (RPG)

2. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars (fighter)

3. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (action)

4. Dark Void (action)

5. Army of Two: The 40th Day (FPS)

6. Darksiders (action)

7. Bayonetta (action)

Big release from past years (must have 80k sales worldwide for each system)

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Big releases in 2009 by month

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Releases in November 2009

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1. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (platformer)

2. Left 4 Dead 2 (FPS)

3. Assassin's Creed II (action)

4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (FPS)

5. Dragon Age: Origins (RPG)

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Releases in October 2009

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1. Forza Motorsports 3 (racing)

2. Tekken 6 (fighting)

3. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (platform)

4. Borderlands (FPS)

5. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 (fighter)

6. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (TPS)

7. Brutal Legend (action)

8. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (sports)

9. Wii Fit Plus (sports)

10. NBA 2K10 (sports)

11. Demon's Souls (RPG)

12. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (action)

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Releases in September 2009

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1. Halo 3: ODST (FPS)

2. The Beatles Rock Band (Rhythm)

3. Guitar Hero 5 (Rhythm)

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Releases in August 2009

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1. Batman: Arkham Asylum (action)

2. Metroid Prime: Trilogy (adventure)

Vgchartz has no more previous pre-order numbers from August 2009 and before.

This is a smart idea for a thread, however for the Ratio, you should seperatly compute an american sales vs pre-order ration. American Pre-orders don't necessarily reflect the popularity of the game franchise worldwide, games like Halo and Madden it's a good representation, but for something like Gran Turismo or LBP, it isn't. So many PS3 games will get an inflated ratio.

Still, smart idea for a thread, I'm excited to see Halo's Pre-order to week 1 sales ratio. I recall Halo 3 only had 1 million Pre-orders, but sold 3.8 million units week one. If Reach can pull off that ratio, thats over 7.5 million units week one, well above Modern Warfare 2 (360), and very close to Modern Warfare 2 for BOTH PS3 and 360.

I'm doing a massive pre order article with something like this!  Stolen my idea John

Nice idea!

this should be stickied!

Smart idea indeed.

This is certainly an interesting topic. I'd love to see some comparison made between past/upcoming titles too, as I think that could give us some extra insight. Just something off the top of my head would be this: CoD MW2 vs Halo Reach (using Halo 3/Halo 3 ODST ratios as a loose guide).

First week sales for Halo 3/ODST were roughly 3:1 in favour of Americas compared to EMEAA (Halo 3: 2.8m vs 0.9m, ODST: 1.67m vs 0.5m). In comparison, first week sales of CoD MW2 (on 360) were 2:1 in favour of Americas compared to EMEAA (3.28m vs 1.6m).
For (American, as that's what we get) preorders, MW2 finished at approximately 1.85m I believe (I can only find 1 week before, where it was at 1.7m with a week to go, so I'm approximating). We can see that sales of MW2 in Americas were ~72% higher than preorders. For ODST, preorders totaled 1.35m, which meant that total sales (in Americas) were only about 23% higher than preorders. I can't seem to find pre-order numbers for Halo 3, so it would be great if someone could find them for me.

Based on these figures, it would seem to suggest that Halo sales are more pre-ordered than other blockbusters (though ODST was widely seen as an expansion pack, so it's also not surprising that only the more "dedicated" would appear to have purchased, and many of those would be more likely to pre-order than the more "casual" gamers). While it's hardly an exact science, this to me gives the impression that while Halo Reach may have more American pre-orders than MW2 (on Xbox 360), it is quite possible that the number of non-pre-ordered copies will be lower. Similarly, sales in EMEAA are likely to be lower than American sales for Halo Reach, in relative terms at least when compared with many other large franchises. As I've said, these are all estimates, but I just think it is interesting to look at. It's things like these (Halo being far bigger in Americas than EMEAA compared with other titles, pre-orders for Americas as such making up a larger portion of overall first-week sales than other titles), that leads me to believe that Reach is unlikely to beat MW2's (360) first week sales worldwide. All just food for thought, and definitely only a theory, but I thought it might be something you guys might all be interested in.

EDIT: So, I think my actual point was that it would be interesting to see sales of previous entries in franchises (for example, Fifa 10 pre-orders/sales ratio to see how Fifa 11 might end up), and I just went into far too much detail with my example.