it will sell over 1 million the first week, probably like 1.2 -1.4 million and maybe over the 2 million mark by the second week

as far as the numbers game goes (and this is really just a hypothesis), I think that the numbers have to do something with residual (for lack of a better term) sales.

ex: Numbers crunchers and analysts look at many other games first day sales and create a graph showing with some certainty a correlation between first day, and lifetime totals.  

1million on the first day= 8+ million total sales 

.9 million on first day= 6 million total

.8=5mill

and so forth. This might be completely wrong but i'm guessing that there may be factors such as hype, consistency, popularity, and the like contributing to a figure that has not really been mentioned.

Although, I think it might be more possible that one million on the first day covers all liabilities, and that graph thing i was talking about gives some indication of profit and or likeliness of future exclusivity. 

Can someone give me the number of pre-orders and/or where they got it from please

I personally think Metal Gear Solid 4's sales its first day will surprise a lot of people....I think 1 million first day is most definitely possible...i know some people that have been holding off on buying the 40 gigs just because this game comes packed in...with a dualshock 3...not to mention the people that already have a ps3...ill be getting it day one.

What's with so many knew accounts lately?!?!...this is freaking crazy!!!!!!

OT: to answer your question, I truly think 1 million first WEEK is reachable considering Metal Gear Solid is a strong name to the Americans and Japanese.

Hmm? I thought it had done relatively better in Europe than in Japan? 

Pretty stupid to specify a period of 1 day to recover production cost's for MGS4 (if that's what they actualy said ). Konami's objective in my opinion would be to receover the cost's of MGS4 and make a profit in an X month period.

Ryan Payton was the one who said it, and in a podcast following the interview Ryan said the man kept talking about the console war and what Ryan thought about the 360 sales compared to the PS3's and what not. Ryan said he made no comment about the 1 million in one day. The man in his podcast (who is also Kojima's interpreter.) said he would be very dissipointed if Ryan Payton said that because they are not to speak of sales numbers. It is not their job. 

My guess is that it needs about 4 million sold in order to break even. The developers cost is rumoured to be close to $ 75 million. Add promotion etc and you're probably close to $ 100 million. My guess is that Konami receives about $ 25,- per sold copy (dev and producer).

OT: 1 million day one might be a bit too much, first week it should.