I don't buy it, the source is meh, could be true though as it is possible...

im sorry rocktpig, i didn't mean to make my post sound like i was stating it all as facts, it was my opinion. Sorry. I have to say though, truthfully, you are the only person ive ever spoken to that liked the ending, even the game developers said it was rushed. anyway, bk to the point. I dont really think the source sounds very feasible

I wonder if their idea of "preorders" is companies like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. having already placed their initial orders for the game.

I don't know a single person who has preordered Halo but know about 15 who will buy it on launch day.

 That's a good point, actually. I'm certain the stores combined order over 1 million copies of God of War 2. So, it is feasible to believe the stores are ordering Halo 3 in massive numbers.

You really can't say that the 360 has the better holiday line-up than the PS3;

MGS 4, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Warhawk, Heavenly Sword, Killzone 2 and maybe the FF XIII and of course Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction. These are games that will appeal to everyone, or at least one of them will. Also many people will buy PS3 because of what is over the horizon; God of War III, GT 5 (Jak and Daxter The Lost Frontier) Resistance 2, probably MotorStorm 2.

Of couse the 360 price will drop as will the PS3's, but by the end of the year, far more people will have HD TVs and so far more will be interested in getting next gen DVD players. Many people who want a games console will opt for the PS3 as it comes with the next generation DVD player built in, and by then Blu-ray will probably have an unassailable lead.

Back to the main arguement; why is it so suprising that there have been 4m pre-orders for Halo 3. This is meant to be the best game of the year (according to Xbox fanboys) so why should there not be so many especially as pre-orders have apparently been taking place since 2005. I thought Halo 2 sold 8M, so you would expect this one to top that as people have seen how good the series is. Of couse it will be a hardware shifter for them, but you would expect that, although I think that many of the people who get Halo 3 will be people who bought the 360 for GRAW and Gears of War. According to the data on this website, they sold 2M and 4M respectively. Considering that, this is not hugely suprising especially as this is not actually from customers, and many of the pre-orderers are people who bought those games

I would also guess that alot of this is simply the stores ordering loads and loads, as many people will pick the game up with their new 360's on launch day.

Also, I take it this is only from US stores?

Not liekly, all the big preorder news for NA always end up being fake.

MGS4 is huge, everyone knows that. Heavenly Sword should do well. Killzone? C'mon, the first game was mediocre at best. Ratchet & Clank games have never sold well. FF XIII is not coming out this year, let's just ignore that one. Warhawk is multi-player only. That always limits a game's appeal. Uncharted is a huge question mark but I'm not ruling out that it will be a great game.

Compare that to the 360 lineup:

Halo 3 is huge, we all know that. Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, both from the creator of the FF series. They'll both be huge. Bioshock is coming from the guys who did System Shock. Mass Effect is from the guys who did the original KOTOR and Jade Empire. Forza is almost out. Eternal Sonata should be a good seller, if not great.

Every one of those games, except Eternal Sonata, are from developers whose last game received 9.0 scores or higher on average. They're all top-shelf developers with a proven track record in the genre their new game is in.

 Are you saying that just because of what an original game was like determines how good the next game was. Was GTA 2 an incredible game, I doubt it, then GTA III came along and changed the face of gaming. If you;ve played Killzone Liberation you will know that it is an extremely good game, and I think that Guerilla will build form there. If you are also counting games released earlier in the year, you also have Lair, which will be a great game as well, which's developer's last game was though to be very good (i think).

You may say ignore FF XIII because it's probably not coming out this year, but many people will think that they might just wait to get that, rather than buying Blue Dragon and/or Lost Odessey. 

I'm saying that I'll hedge my bets on a successful developer in a genre (say, Bioware in RPG) over a mediocre developer in another genre (Say, Guerilla in FPS). Besides, Killzone is going to be head-to-head with Halo. Do you honestly think that Killzone is going to get more than 15 seconds of press from anyone? Not to say that it will be a horrible game, it's just likely that no one will care.

Yes, people might wait for FF on the PS3. But that wasn't the argument, was it? We were arguing the merits of the upcoming games (pre-holiday 2007) for each system.

Lair does need to be included. While I think the game will be mildly successful, I don't think it will rock anyone's world. I'd put it a little higher than Eternal Sonata and a little lower than Mass Effect or Bioshock (who, if you remember, cleaned up E3 in Best of Show awards).