Apparently you have no idea what you're talkin about.

Look, I understand that these numbers can make you dizzy. but if you're afraid of heights don't stay in this thread.

The ..."lightning", used the same unofficial method for tracking Fable's first week. I trust him again in  Gears case untill I'm proven wrong. Your problem?

2.5million Fable 2 = $100 million - $40 million for development advertising nets $60 million profit. (40x2.5-40)

At least a couple of million Live subscriptions get renewed/created in the holiday season. Lets say 2 million = $80 million.

~$300 million from software royalties *Total last software sold last year x 1.25 x 6.5*

So they should be pulling in from software/services alone at least $440,000,000

Not surprising. I just got off Gears 2 and all 14 of the online people on my friends list (with the exception of one who was labelled "away") was playing gears 2. The only time I've ever seen this happen before was Halo 3. Gears deserves the sales; spectacular game.

I hope 3mil, but 2 days is tough!

Few notes:

1) I'm not trying to argue a 3.0m 2-day week. I'm merely saying in relative terms, it'd hit 3.0m+ easy in a "standard" 5-day week.

2) My official projection is 4.0m for the first 2 weeks (which would teeter on 9 days), which is a more reliable projection than trying to figure out what it'll do in 2 days.

The argument is that right now, Gears 2 is tracking in between GTAIV (3.3m first week) and Halo 3 (3.8m first week) using Day-0 data. So I think that had this of been launched on a Tuesday, we'd be seeing 3.4-3.6m first week sales. Obviously, with 3 less days it'll be lower. However, the comparison is valid, and even with missing 3 days, after 2 weeks, it will have come much closer to a GTAIV/H3 comparison, and should be at the 4m mark or a little bit more since both games were above 4.2-3 million after 12 days of data.

Also, it's not a matter of "lighting striking twice"

How do you think that ioi gets his numbers, honestly? He uses retail samples. Instead of going to who is selling the games, I'm merely polling who is actually playing, and going from there.

And it *just so happens* that virtually every game on any gamercard website mirrors VGC sales charts, NPD sales charts, or any other western stat tracking service.

Using the gamercard data, I can poll roughly 10% of the actual Xbox 360 userbase at any given time, and roughly 17% if you were merely talking about Live-enabled users.

So the point is: If you could look at 17% of all Xbox 360 owners (or any system, for that matter), don't you think you could figure out how games are selling? That's all I have done.

I've been right about Fable 2, Fallout 3 (which the numbers are pending, but I've scored on them too), and many other games. More and more, ioi is pinging me about my methodology to use as a good way of projecting X360 sales for games, because the same size is even larger than how he gets his normal data.

Oh, and to finish:

Halo 3 sold 1.8m units Day-1 worldwide (if I'm not mistaken). Gears 2 is within 80% of that, or just under 1.5m units on Day-1.

Now now don't get testy about your numbers simply because people are arguing logically. If they were arguing illogically then you'd have a case.

Point being 4 million in 2 weeks is a lot, or 9 days for GeoW 2 and that's hard to believe for anyone. I mean these are like Halo and GTA like numbers and Gears is in no way that kind of franchise.

I'm not saying your numbers are wrong but I just trying to find a way how it could be that from a logical standpoint. And I personally hope your numbers are right cause it'll show just how large this holiday season will be but for now I got to be skeptical. This is not me saying you are wrong because I don't want to be wrong if you are right haha but I will be a little skeptical like I am of VGC numbers in general.

You're wrong, Gears IS that kind of franchise. The first has a solid fanbase of 5.5 million. Thats a lot of potential buyers right there, not to mention the userbase has grown 10 million since the launch of Halo 3.

4 million in 2 weeks is VERY doable, I guess we are just going to have to wait for the numbers? haha!

Epic lulz.