Sounds fair to me. So just to clarify the bet - First four months of Ghosts has to outsell first four months of BO2 in order me to win the bet.

Man, this should be a good one and be pretty close. Good luck.

I don't see it topping 40m, even with next-gen versions. 35m seems like a safe bet.

The last numbers I saw for GTAIV were 25m across all platforms. Your proposed 40m would mean a 60% growth for a series whose previous entries reached an already pretty wide range of gamers. What factors would explain such a spectacular growth?

I don't know exactly but I've heard its almost break even which is why retailers like gamestop/eb games had to resort to used games in order to turn a profit. 

Edit - After doing non indepth (simple) calculations, I've come with some numbers: If  a game costs $60 and sold 17.5 million units then that equates to $1,050,000,000. That number is for the week. BUT! Take-Two stated that after 3 days they had already reached over a billion. Going by your logic (or my interpretation of your logic, to be fair), GTA 5 has only made about 50 million dollars in the last four days of the week. No. Just no.

The reason Take-Two stated that GTA 5 passed 1 billion dollars  in 3 days was because they shipped that amount to retailers.

GTA V will reach 40 million, anyone thinking otherwise is either delusional or a hater. This is the best selling entertainment product of all time, its probably gonna sell 25 million this year alone. Another 15 million across PS360, PC, supposed next gen versions isn't difficult.

Ok...I had to go back and re-read the posts that started this whole thing because I never said 17.5 million is too high. So lets just clear that up. I do think GTA sold 17.5 million retail. I didn't realize you were defending the sales believe it or not, it just seemed to me like you thought that a company knows or states how many units were sold to consumer as opposed to shipped. Sorry about the mix up there.

As for the whole calcutlation thing, like I said "non indepth" simple calculations, as in not taking everything into consideration like the $160 special editions and whatnot. But 90%-95% of sales would be from retail and regular editions of the game so adding on about 75-125 million more dollars which doesn't quite add up if they already made 1 billion dollars after just 3 days.

As for how much a retailer makes off a videogame? It differs from chain to chain/store to store. Places like EB Games, Future Shop or Best Buy make pennies with new game software as well as consoles/hardware. It's the accesories and used games that run their business and how they keep operating. Some chains actually have place holder prices with certain publishers in which case they can get money back from the publisher if the publisher drops the MSRP of said game. That way the chain/store doesn't pay more than they sell.

Ah the old if you don't agree with me, you're a hater approach. Truly the best way to debate. I promise you, I'm neither delusional, nor a hater. I just think 40mil is too big of a boost to expect from GTAV.

g

you too

Has already outsold Wii Fit, will outsell Mario Kart sometime next year, will VASTLY outsell it if it gets a next gen port.

consider your words marked, or at least halfway there :)