I may be mistaken, but weren't both Gran Turismo and Gran Turismo 3 practically launch games for the PS1 and PS2 meaning you could not purchase a PS1 or PS2 without having to buy the game with it? If so, then that explains their numbers.

As for Gran Turismo 5, I am lowballing it a tad with my predictions at 425k first week and 4 million lifetime to the chagrin of CGI-Quality and others on another thread who use Prologues sales, point out the VGCHartz preorder charts are for the Americas only, and fervently believe Gran Turismo 5 will be just as big if not bigger than the last Gran Turismo game.

I just don't think Gran Turismo 5 will have the 2 to 3 years to be adequately bundled to pass the 10 million mark. I think Nintendo is going to crash that party sometime in late 2012. Just a hunch.

Microsoft has a short-term, quarterly focus, while Sony is betting on the long-term by catering to emerging countries such as Brazil, India and the like.

Just imagine the attach rate for Gran Turismo 5 in Brazil or India if Sony pushed it hard enough. Gran Turismo 5 would blow Black Ops first day and first week sales out of the water.

Preorders stalled because there was no release date. As soon as Sony announced one Amazon preorders increased 1300% and it has been outselling Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Donkey Kong Country Returns ever since. It's launching Black Friday week too, so that'll help. The American commercials start airing tomorrow.

In short, it'll do fine.

and you cant believe how PS3 advertising are absolutely absent in France too ...

I m not going to say GT5 will match GT1/2/3/4
I expect 10M LTD, but it is a maximum numbers rather than a minimum

but, seriously, the 425k first week prediction is LOL
French sales alone may be 400k first week (first month guaranted)
I m guessing european preorder are close to 1M
and 4M should even be the first month sales ...

America=/=the world.

Sony don't contact each individual branch of Gamestop etc to tell them when GT5 is being released, the retailers head office should be passing that info on to the store manager(which they would have, so the store can order their stock), who should be passing the info on to their staff.

i don't see any PS3 title being hype in the US region in this gen at all , 360 won most of the core gamer's heart there , Wii won casual & non-gamer's heart , so all left only PS loyal fans will support PS3 there which is not as huge base as before anymore , all i can say is sony really lost in the US region for this gen..

425k week one? It should do at least 600k week on in the Americas alone, if not more. Total WW pre-orders right now are over 1 million. It hit 250k in JP/US last week, and EU pre-orders were already totalling more than 500k.

From reading various gaming sites and news sites, I'd say pre-orders are likely to hit 1.25-1.5 million right before release. The game should open to about 2m week one, if not more. PS3 numbers should jump by 250k from GT5 bundles alone, not to mention others who are going to buy a PS3 just to play GT5.

Sales should hit 4-5 million no more than a week into January (think gift card cashouts).

Nah it's not in trouble. Japan has 200,000 pre - orders without including the sold out bundles. NA has 260,000 without any advertisements yet. I actually expect GT5 to have around a 60,000 - 75,000 weekly increase this week. Don't forget that it releases on Black Friday week. Add in EMEAA where I'm sure that GT5 has over 1 Million pre - orders.