Next week might be the largest non-holiday gaming week ever in America.

 I meant systems. I was talking about ToysRus having more systems than ever before. If that is indicative of the whole market, then we might see >750k systems.

I expect ~800k-1m games sold. 

This should be interesting.

So no one things Mario Kart can sell as many copies and Smash Brothers did?

^ VERY doubtfull. IMO 1M is a bit high.

Hehe, Nintendo might win "biggest developer of the month" even for the month GTA IV launches!

(Nintendo could have made it even without this really, last month they had 5.4M with Brawl, but Brawl second month + MKWii + few days of Wii Fit could actually beat the crap outta GTA IV.

MKWii should appeal to a larger audience than Smash Brothers.... after all, it was already present at the SNES time when Nintendo was dominating so it should be a lot more recognizable.

When does Brawl launch in Europe?

Sales were very close on the gamecube.  To be fair, MK:DD sold 1.93m in Europe and 4.14m in the US.  This suggests that Mario Kart will be more than twice as big in the US as it was in Europe, where its first two weeks came out to over a million already.

^ Yes, but Smash is by far Nintendo's biggest opening in USA, I don't see MKWii trumphing that.

Next week's sales are going to be an interesting bunch. I'd definitely get the game on day one... if I had the cash. *sigh* Ah well, sooner or later (later) I'll have the money to buy MKWii, being on the top of my gaming list. Then I need to get Okami... and then No More Heroes... and then Boom Blox...

@bigfatj

I think Mario Kart will be huge, but I don't think it will be as big out the gate. The DS had ~1/3-1/4 the install base of the wii. If we multiply the first week sales by 3 and 4 we get a range of 575k-770k. So 800k-1m would be good for MKWii.

Also, 2 out of 2 people I know who pre-ordered Smash are not picking up Mario kart wii until they can get it at Sams Club for $5 off, which could be a week or 2 after launch. Although this doesn't mean anything at all, I just don't think the hardcore players will rush it as much.

You also have to take into account that they need to make a million of those Wii wheels, and who knows how many they will really have. Supposedly you should be able to buy the wheel by itself the same day.