It's a P3 situation all over again.

Yeah... I doubt that.

Exactly, the Vita had a comparatively tiny install base and sold comparatively tiny software numbers in its first year to the PS3 at the same time (still does, of course) yet an enhanced port managed to sell 700k. A dying PS3 is still more conducive to software sales than a newborn Vita, unfortunately, and so P5 is going to breeze past P4G sales. Persona has grown a lot since P4, P4G demonstrates that, and Atlus know what they're doing putting the long awaited sequel on PS3. 

Being the most noticable and - for quite some time - only Japanese RPG on Vita gave it much greater exposure than Persona 5 will get, at a time where PS3 is swamped in a sea of JRPG's.  If this "userbase = more sales" argument stood true, Sal, we both know Vita would get 0 games ever.  So I don't quite understand why you're bringing that up here :P

Also, check my edit in the last post.  The figure we should be comparing is 590k, not 700k, unless VGC magically decides to start tracking digital (and well, shipped for that matter) some time soon and retroactively adjusts all previous titles.

I just don't see it.  Many people will have upgraded to PS4 by the time Persona 5 releases in the west, especially if PlayStation Now releases that year and people decided that is acceptable for their backwards compatibility fix.  Persona 3 & 4 saw similar "twilight year" releases on PS2, which obviously had a much larger userbase than Vita will ever have, but that didn't propel them to 1m sales.

I'd be very happy if Persona 5 makes it, but PS3 will be on its absolute last legs in Japan by the end of 2014 and I have no idea what state it'll be in the west in late 2014 - 2015, but I can't imagine it'll be much better.  Combined with, like I said, Persona being one of those series which tends to be a lot more internet hyped than real world sales recognises. 

"userbase = more sales"  is an extremely reductive version of what I was saying, so I don't know what your first paragraph is doing there! Install base definitely plays a part in this scenario, when they are so similar. I bet there's a ton of overlap between PSV owners that bought P4G and PS3 owners that will buy P5, but with the added benefit of the rest of the potential audience that exists on the PS3. Especially in Japan, where it's the primary console for older teens/young adults that are the market Persona games (and their anime movies) hit square in the face. 

And why should we care what the VGC number is, if the 700k is the accurate one. The argument is whether P5 can hit 1 mil, doesn't matter whther that's digital or physical (we just have to rely on Atlus releasing the total number, which considering they did for P4G and P5 is definitely going to sell more, I'd say it's a safe bet they will :P).

As for P3 and 4 releasing in the twilight years, as I said, the franchise has seriously grown since then. 700k on Vita! VITA! Vita is no PS2 you know! And I don't see PS3 being on its last legs in Japan. The transition to PS4 will be a slow one for JP players and an even slower one for their devs. It will still see healthy software sales in JP in 2014. The West will be a worse situation though for sure, and if it appears on this Playstation Now thingy that will throw a spanner in the works, I'll give you that. Game streaming in general is going to screw up our sales figures as indicators of performance quite a bit. 

Because we're in a thread where the OP counted the number of 360 million sellers in the database and the number of PS3 million sellers in the database.  Bringing "but it shipped x and it might have sold y digitally" means we're never talking in absolutes when looking at million sellers.  Because Atlus might tell us how many copies Persona 5 sold digitally which helps us ascertain 1 million; but when Warner won't tell us how much LEGO xyz sitting at 0.98m sold, we're at a loss.

I do understand your argument.  Who knows, maybe it will reach a million, and I'd be really happy for it if it did.  I just don't really believe that the Persona userbase is actually that big.  I think it has a dedicated userbase in both the west and the east who buy the game, but they don't come anywhere near to 1 million; and then there's people who'll buy the game based on circumstance - like a lot of people did with Persona 4 Golden on Vita - and I don't think circumstance will be on Persona 5's side when it releases.  Heck, I already saw a load of comments in the thread when it got announced about how people had sold their PS3's and were wishing it was coming to PS4.  Situation's only gonna be worse in a year and a bit's time.

I don't give a toss about the OP's intentions or Warner Bro's Lego game sales lol, we're arguing specifically about P5's chance of hitting 1 million in the real world, not VGChartz 1 million. If you thought I was arguing this whole time about whether it would hit 1 mil on VGC then sorry I didnt tell you earlier. 

'I think it has a dedicated userbase in both the west and the east who buy the game, but they don't come anywhere near to 1 million'  - I just don't understand how you can think that when it has a 'dedicated userbase' big enough to get a game to 700k on one of the floppiest systems of all time. 

Quite frankly my dear, I dont give a damn.

No, we're not.  Or at least, I wasn't.  Since this argument was brought up in the first place about potential PS3 million sellers in the database yet to come and that's why I doubted Persona 5 would get there.  I suppose it might well ship + digital a million, but that's not what I was referring to.  It's why people like Barozi were bringing up earlier in the thread that certain 360 games are missing European numbers because again, it's to do with database tracking.

@ bold, that was my point about opportunity.  Persona 4 Golden is the highest rated game on Vita.  It was the only JRPG released in 2012 for the system and only really had a challenge in 2013 from Ys at the end of the year and I suppose the downloadable Atelier games.  That kind of circumstance is going to net it more sales when people have a shiny new piece of hardware and want some of the best games for it.  It's going to be less of a factor for PS3 which will be in its 8th/9th year of life by the time P5 releases.

It is quite amazing that Xbox360 had so many million sellers in the last generation considering the original Xbox failed to the hell comparing to PS2.

Nice job, team Xbox~!