Wow Smash is winning? I thought it was selling as people expected. MHW on the other hand NO ONE expected to sell like this and a close second for me would me Spider-man. Interesting seeing everyones choices though.

Super Mario Party at almost 5 million is really impressive and it was not something I expected. GoW also blew my expectations away since I was basing my estimates of past sales of the franchise which GoW crushed.

Not sure how Smash Ultimate's sales are supposed to be surprising or exceeding expectations? Even the Wii U version sold over 5 million copies on a 13 million install base, so 9 million on a 30 million consoles shouldn't be that unexpected really, especially for what has been one of Nintendo's biggest franchises for almost two decades now. Isn't this more par for the course if anything? I would have been more surprised if it didn't sell like this.

As for what I asnwered, I never thought that Monster Hunter would become such a big hit in the west, even with the more user friendly experience. I just felt that it was always going to be more of a niche series. I'm very happy it has done so well.

Should look at the threads which people predicted the sales.

But considering people expecting MHW selling like 1-3M WW and it smashing it I would say it is bigger surprise. GoW and Spider-Man also sold much much more than some people had expected (and they seem off in the tracking of Machina).

Spiderman and GOW blew away expectations but MHW is the undisputed king.

Nobody and I mean nobody except that guy from Capcom predicted anything close to 10m and even then that guy probably meant LTD not pre holiday season and in under a year. MHW no argument at all.

SW shipment is usually quite close to selling, they don't need 2 months worth or regular sale on inventory. There is a reason pre-orders and day ones are used so much to help do right shipment.

And when you look most games the bulk of the sales come on first week and first month.

Holiday shipments is another story here. SMO sold-through number+Digital were~7m while the shipments were 9.07m and SSBU with the highest number of preorder usually equate to a large shipments size especially in a holiday month to prevent a stock situation from disrupting Smash momentum.  Japan 250k Smash ultimate number on the 1st week of sales was another proof of a big shipment from Nintendo. 

People are surprised not because of that big number but the timeframe of that number. 

25 days of sales = 9-10m(Physical+Digital)

Smash Ultimate is already outpacing the previous entries and about to overtake the best selling version in just a month. 

It's still nowhere near a genuine surprise as far as I'm concerned. Smash was always going to sell well, so it selling well, but faster is still completely within reason.

So it's going to surpass the best selling version (Brawl 13m) in 100m userbase with ease = within expectations while high budget MHW outperforming 3ds MH4+G(8.3m) is a surprise to you despite releasing on XB1+PS4+PC with over 200m userbase.