Sorry but the world revolves around money, can't make pure art for free.

well....judging by the extreme hype the game have got i'll say it will sell above 2 million LTS & it will be profitable.

it got my attention for sure & i haven't played or heard about the first two b4 2010!

& lets not forget that the PS3 games can only be played by the original version not some pirated one which controlled the market in my country(saudi arabia) & others back in the PS2 era.

I think it will do reasonably well (upwards of 2M). There is a lot of hype for this game right now and im sure sony will do a lot more marketing for this game than they did for Ico/SotC. After all, the ps2 was dominant in its era so they didnt need to market and make the 1st two games commercial successes. With this gen and how close all the consoles are, im sure they will market this game as something different to appeal to gamers (kinda the way heavy rain was marketed). Either way, the sales of the Ico/SotC collection should give us an idea.

Most probably. Small team, etc. as others have noted. In looking at a title like this it's important to understand it's not aiming for huge numbers - a good analogy would be a mid range cost film aiming for a small profit and high acclaim.

That's exactly what I expect from The Last Guardian, high critical acclaim - probably some awards for the Sony award cabinet - and an okay profit to cover the support of a more artistic development team.

TBH the Team ICO guys (and gals) are the closest thing in the gaming world to how Kubrick was for me in film. High acclaim, unique work and modest sales/profit but a disproportionately high recognition in the industry. Team ICO have that - with ICO and SOTC having an awareness and critical reception way above their actual sales.

I have not been sold on that game yet.

Does anyone know the answer to this?

According to an unreferenced paragraph on Wikipedia, they've been working on the game since late 2006/early 2007

"In February 2007 Team Ico took out a full page advertisement in the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu. The advertisement featured some early concept sketches on note paper, suggesting that the team's new game was then in the early phases of design."

I'm quite optimistic and think it will sell around about the 1.8m mark. As others have mentioned, a small team will mean the game will almost certainly make a small profit. But TLG is not the type of game that will make shitloads of money and I don't think anyone ever expects it to.

Probably not. It'll do okay,but nothing more.