I hope the ads continue, the only 3rd party game I have ever seen advertised was MH3 and that was done by Nintendo

First, I apologize if my reaction seems a bit harsh. In my line of work, mental health, a skill you learn very quickly is being able to take it along with giving it.

Of course they are not absolute, you are right. They are a predictor tool used to gauge the amount of interest in a game. As ioi said,

"Boutros, only a handful of games (Nintendo mainly) would ever double from final pre-orders to week one sales - most will be more like 25-50% higher. Not sure why anybody would have expected 1.5m from 885k pre-orders?"

Source: http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/82519/fallout-new-vegas-week-one-sales-in/

Goldeneye as of October 23, 2010 registered 49,994 preorders in the Wii's largest market, the Americas. 

Source: http://www.vgchartz.com/preorders.php

So taking the expert's observation, if Goldeneye was released this week, then it would sell a little over 100,000 at the most in the Americas. However, it still has less than a week to go. If there isn't a magical upshot in Goldeneye preorders, then I just don't see it reaching 500k much less a 1m sold by the end of week 1. However, I can see Goldeneye selling 1 to 2.5 million copies by this year's end.

As for preorders not pertaining to Wii as an "absolute measure," then whose opinion do we trust? Sean Malstrom?

I'm sorry, I just don't buy Goldeneye being an exception from the sell double the preorder at most rule according to VGChartz. Nor do I buy Malstrom because his blog does not go well back into the PS2 era, thusforth I have reservations on who he will be heaping the most praise upon if Nintendo is not #1 next generation. To be fair, Malstrom has criticized Nintendo more than usual in the last few months, but not as harsh as "the industry," which I take to include Sony and Nintendo along with Sakamoto and diva developers in Japan and the West.

My final prediction for Goldeneye week 1 is 200k to 500k at most. 1 to 2.5 million by January 1, 2011. It will get slaughtered by Black Ops and Medal of Honor.

I can see it being a million seller, or close to it, by the end of 2010 which will put it in the top 10 for 2010 on Wii. It's a good shot at beating RE4: Wii Edition for best selling mature/shooter title on Wii. And it could even be the first such title to break 2 million.

It's a lot to expect from a FPS game on Wii, but it's got the nostalgia factor working in its favour.

Ah Source made me realise they probably mean games released in 2010? Of which it's most definitly doable.

I believe he meant long-term sales not being reflected in initial preorder numbers, not week one sales not being reflected by said numbers

I think he's going to be dissapointed in a big way. I'll be surprised if this game even gets close to 400,000 by the end of the year. I'm sure it'll make enough to profit but not as much as he hopes.

And more later on if this is kept up.

How many Wii games released this year have done well?  Not many.

It'll outsell Red Steel 2...

It depends on what they expect "big sales" to be. I think it will likely end up around 1 million.

Poor delusional niave Activision, thinking that Golden Eye will be able to keep up with Nintendo's first party titles let alone take out everyone else. My bet is 300k this winter which is better then The Conduit did but I don't think it will be able to beat JustDance2, Donkey Kong Country:Returns, Kirby:Epic Yarn, WiiParty , Super Mario Collection, Call Of Duty :Black Ops.

Seriously I haven't seen any ads for it yet and hype here and elsewhere online isn't as high as Conduits was prior to its launch. With such low pre-order numbers to boot I doubt it will break the top 5 if it makes the top 10 at all this winter.