Don't think so.  Is it likely to be over 4m? 

Vgchartz has it on 3.5m retail so with digital it's probably around 4.2m. How accurate is Vgchartz?  If it's accurate then halo is likely leading. 

I wouldn't trust there numbers. So far I think US sold over 2mil,around 2.2mil? Europe is somewhere around or under 600k? 

And I can see halo5 being over shipped. I'm guessing 4.5mil by years end, difference is the game probably won't need a big shipment next quarter. 

Well Splatoon was heavily bundled during the holidays in both US and Japan.
Still surprising, but not really a fair comparison.

The xbox one will still be viable after the Wii U is replaced, Halo 5 will have a PC release and it doesn't have the benefit of Japan, so Halo 5 > Splatoon

Yeah that's definitely possible.  Hopefully you're right because I'd really love splatoon to win this duel. 

Actually splatoon wasn't heavily bundled in Japan. It was probably only about 70k-100k going by weekly sales and when it was completely off the market. 

That said heavily bundled isn't why splatoon sold so well, and giving low wiiu sales I bet halo 5 shipped more bundles than splatoon did. 

Also one is a new IP on a horrible user base and the other is MS number 1 1st party game. It's unfair comparison..... For Splatoon :p

So halo 5 will be ahead of mk8 too with that logic? Last I checked splatoon has crazy legs, better than most exclusive games do. Halo5 will be more frontloaded 

Defensive much, why mention mk8? My comment didnt have anything do with it.  You bringing in MK8 to a thread about splatoon and Halo 5 is illogical.  My reasoning for why Halo 5 will still outsell Splatoon, despite lack of Japanese support, is sound, your retort is not.

like I said, even with bundles it is surprising, but Splatoon didn't have it that hard to begin with competition wise.
When a console has so few new releases, it's quite clear that the games that do come to the console do well. WiiU only owners don't have much of a choice. Either buy some of those quite old games that you probably already own, buy a new game (that is either Splatoon or Mario Maker along with a few lesser interesting ones) or buy nothing at all during the holidays.

Now, assuming Mario Maker and Splatoon would've been delayed to 2016, what do you think would have happened to the ~7m sales they generated during that time? Vanish? Some of them for sure, but most would've simply bought another game. Then you'd see threads about Xenoblade or a similar release selling 3m etc.

It's pretty much the same reason why some launch games do far more than they would usually do. I mean do you really think that games like Ryse or Knack would go easily past 1m if they were released during the last holiday season instead of being launch games?

Excluding mk8 it's still funny how comparable a new nintendo ip is (which many including you) wouldnt even break a million if not that much more to go head to head with he big Established halo franchise!