It would actually be about 710,000 on the shelves, and that is assuming MGS4 is at exactly 4 million.  Not saying VGC is wrong though.

 Hardcore gaming is pretty much on its dying bed. Unless a game has some sort of easy to get into MP or it's publicity costs are higher than the production ones, most interested people will rent it, play the SP and that's it.

And btw, it is pretty obvious that MGS4 will outsell MGS3 lifetime.

Not bad, 4.33 Million shipped to retailers. This game should surpass 2 and 3 in terms of sales.

VGC numbers are spot on, shipment data is helpfull in determining LTD sales of games. And MGS4 already passed MGS3 shipped LTD figures in 4 months with first holiday season still ahead.

Two major flaws in this post.

1) Calling it trolling for quoting the numbers on this site is... weird?
2) If those seven million are true, then it would only further support the idea of MGS as a brand losing strength, wouldn't it?

rockstar only tell us their so called shipped numbers so there is no way for us to know the real numbers. that way we just have to take their numbers, whether its sold, shipped or whatever else you want to call it as sold numbers because thats the closest we get!

Maybe you should check your facts before you post.

http://kotaku.com/5013522/gta-iv-sold-85-million-shipped-11-million-so-far

Ok so this is for the end of september.. and there is a supposed 1-1.5 Million on shelves then.. interesting..

my god mgs4 is a beast to sell this well with the ps3 lower fan base and to push ps3 HW that much too WOW is all I can say

FYI: A quick google search reveals....

Total 7,437 Walmart locations. Walmart also does centralized warehousing so there could be a ton in warehousing in addition to what is on shelves.

Gamestop has 5,889 stores in 18 countries as of the end of 2007 and were planning to open another 600 in 2008. So lets assume 6,300 or so.

Best Buy has around 1,800 locations worldwide.

Target has just shy of 1,500 locations.

TRU has about 700 stores in 33 countries.

And there are a ton of other stores as well, but just these 5 stores have about 17,700 store locations. And I didn't even hit on some of the major European, Asian, or Austrailian retailers.

And none of this even begins to mention online retailers. There are plenty of stores for there to EASILY be 1M copies of the game on shelves and in retail warehousing, especially for a popular and hyped game such as this. But don't take my word for it, Fishyjoe's article points out that Rockstar themselves say 2.5 times that many were on shelves for GTA IV.