It's difficult to do that, because 3rd party Wii U titles don't typically get enough preorders to show up on the chart. The only one I could find was Rayman Legends, which was on track for great things until the sudden delay... the last week that it was visible on the charts was end of June 2013, when it was just over 29k. It sold about 160k in NA. Which isn't strong, but it's not far below the "typical" range. And is probably about right after you factor in the cancelled preorders.

The only other 3rd party title I can find on the chart is ZombiU, which was a launch title... and satisfies the factor pretty well - 34k preorders, 360k LTD.

Also, there's not a whole lot of difference between Wii and Wii U in terms of third-party support. And third-party titles on Wii showed this pattern. And there's no reason to think that Wii U would behave any differently, since whether it's "taken off" is kind of irrelevant - the pattern isn't about absolute numbers, but proportions, and there's no evidence that proportions for Wii U are any different.

I work with what I have. And I do realise that it's not 100% perfect accuracy with the numbers I'm using - hence why I emphasised that it's nowhere near proof, but it's "encouraging".

If the preorder charts are so unreliable, then they're unreliable in both directions. Bayonetta 2 could be on track to do even better. Or worse. With the information we have at hand, it looks like it could do fairly well. And that's enough for me for the time being.

That's worldwide (it's now at about 620k worldwide).

That being said, forest-spirit's number is for USA only, whereas I've been using NA numbers (where it's at about 290k). And 2014 numbers are less reliable for the purposes of the comparison, because they're still selling. They haven't been through a holiday season, either. In the first 10 weeks, Bayonetta PS3 sold about 140k in the USA. By the end of the year, it had sold 275k. Lego City Undercover Wii U sold about 167k in the first 10 weeks, and 319k by end of the year. Heck, Rayman Legends Wii U sold about 54k in the first 10 weeks (to 9th of November) and by the end of the year had sold 121k.

Based on this, I'd estimate that Tropical Freeze would be at about 600-700k by the end of the year in North America.

x10 what will be the final pre-order number just for US will be good!

WW double those numbers will be nice!

I'm hyped for Bayonetta 2, especially since the first Bayonetta game comes packaged with it. I'm really hoping it sells between 500 thousand and 1 million copies, here's hoping of course! Well, the game looks awesome and the fact it's an exclusive makes it even better!! Lol

I think the slow pace of releases this year for the Wii U will help Bayonetta 2 to fly off the shelves (relatively speaking). Plus Hyrule Warriors coming a few weeks beforehand (in the west) will give people a taste of niche genres and maybe make them more likely to be adventurous with what games they're willing to try.

I know Wonderful 101 made me want to try Bayonetta, whereas before it was a 'probably not'.

Definitely going to be preordering this (and Hyrule Warriors), as Wii U stock levels in Game are abysmal.

OT: very interesting theory in the OP, I think this thread will need a bump just before Bayo2 release in order to give final preorder figures and a final sales prediction

Still hoping for at least 1.6 million though.....

yep agree on the support from 3rd parties. The reason for the question was mainly cause the Wii U userbase is so much lower than Wii was so a biger user base to get you closer to the 10x preorders.  Then again I guess most preorders would have come from core gamers so you could say the sample represents a good core user base that is interested.

Ohhh, these are all just US numbers. I'm less confused now.