BenVTrigger confirmed a month ago that Halo 4 pre-orders already broke the million mark at Gamestop.

We had Halo 4 at 700k at that point. He further added that Gamestop accounts for approx. 80% of all pre-orders in the US. Therefore the pre-order numbers should've been at ~1.2m at that point. 7 weeks from launch.

Now our Halo Reach numbers might be quite wrong as well, though they had been 630k with 7 weeks to go.

it should have shorter legs and because of that i expect it to sell less than halo 3 but it could still sell as much as reach which had also much time to sell but didn't get so good word of mouth for the multiplayer (many halo fans still prefer halo 2 or 3 for that) and wasn't a game of the mainline (but still much more important as odst)

As others have already explained:

ECM is a fairly new user with a clean mod history. While his post was definitely offensive, it was not offensive enough to skip the warning and ban him instead.

Wh1pL4shL1ve_007 responded to the post in question that the author of such is an asshole.
- Insulting any member is strictly against the rules
- The post was clearly marked by Kasz. There was absolutely no reason to respond in any way.
- Wh1pL4shL1ve_007 has a history of insulting users

I banned ferox for one day, even though he had a clean mod history, because he saw why ECM was moderated and still made an even more trollish statement. This was punishment for ignoring the rules instead of "only" not knowing them.

This analogy is wrong, since murder is seen as the highest possible crime.

If a new user posts for example hardcore porn for the first time in an entirely unrelated topic, he or she (most likely he) will be permabanned instantly.
If a new user shares for example his racist or homophobic opinions in any topic, he or she (most likely he) will be banned without getting warned first.
If a new user trolls or flames for the first time, he will recieve a warning.

So no trolling or flaming is no murder, it's more like stealing, where you don't need to go in jail either if you do it for the first time.

@zero129

but the mods can only do what the forum rules are even if you are right so they did handle it like they had to:

"Moderation on VGChartz. VGChartz uses a progressive moderation system. This means that repeats of the same offense will often result in harsher penalties, starting with a warning and working up"

like you see, they first had to give ecm a warning and the other user is already in the situation to get banned.

I don't see how I'm supposed to belive this random forum user.....sure he seems like a nice guy from his comments but that doesn't mean he can be trusted. His comments are something to consider, not fact.

I hope you also consider the fact that most of these new users are alts.

the 360 doesn't have a 70m active install base.. ohh dear god, i swear when someone is hyped about a game, they lose all sense of realism.

We have a policy that allows older members to regain the mod status of a new user (not directly on paper, as in a whiped out mod history, but we see it nonetheless). With that the user starts from the beginning and receives a warning after his next offense.
In order to gain such a status your history needs to be clean for at least half a year. Wh1pL4shL1ve_007 was close to achieving that, but he only kept it clean for 4 months.
These 4 months however have been taken into consideration in my judgement and he was punished with a ban length which is only half of the length of his previous sentence.

In the end this is similar to real life. If you haven't done anything you need to pay some money or do public work. If you're a repeat offender that is on probation and breaks the law once more you're going to jail. If you haven't done something in several years you might be charged with a fine again instead of going to jail.

it's not a random user, it's a long time user who works at Gamestop and knows their numbers.

If that's not enough for you he said the 360 versions of Black Ops 2 and Asassin's Creed III already reached the million BEFORE this and this source showed up.

We have Black Ops 2 lower than MW3, yet this has proven to be wrong. (by BenVTrigger and later by the Gamestop president)
We had Revelations at ~500k for the 360 version and again the Gamespot president says that Assassins Creed 3 has 100% higher pre-orders than the last game. Which should mean 1m for the 360 version.

Doesn't sound like a coincidence, especially since no one else expected that Assassin's Creed III was undertracked.