I think Mario in 2D will always sell more than Mario in 3d .Most people are used to the traditional 2d gaming of Mario .Jumping ,colleting coins/stars ...all that stuff .It sells as a plattformer ,as a mario game ,out of nostalgia ,to casual gamers ..a lot of legs there .Mario on 3D is way more complex and requires some kind of time of dedication to learn the game mechanics ...thats why it doesnt appeal as widely to the casual gaming audience that Nintendo has been creating with the DS and Wii .Still ,it should at least sell some 250K-300K for the first week and the LTD at the very least will be approaching 1 million ...and that only in Japan.

Nintendo can be their own worse enemy. They are too coy when it comes to big releases. Sony and Microsoft are the masters of hype. They know how to get people excited. It's like Nintendo doesn't want to spend too much money on advertising cause it will cut into their profits or something. I would like to see Nintendo throw a party for Galaxy. It's stupid but bring in stars and models and concept cars. You know, do a sexy dance or something. Anything!

Casual vrs hardcore market? Casual gamers will not lineup before work to pick up their copy. Plus Galaxy will have a large shipment, so the chances of NOT getting a copy are pretty low.

Maybe first day sales will be pretty low - but this weekend is where the sales should be at.

Sunshine bombed in Japan at retail, so I can expect retailers to be nervous.

PS - be funny if Ace Combat outsells Galaxy first day sales (360 > Wii!)

Why are we categorizing Super Mario Galaxy as a "casual" title, now? I don't recall ever considering Sunshine or 64 to be "casual" games. Just another bad side effect of this generation of games...

Mario Galaxy isnt casual .But ,the userbase Nintendo has been feeding is mostly a casual one so a hardcore game for a casual userbase .Fortunately there will be enough fans of the old Nintendo and its games out there to grant the game good numbers .

Games that consistently sell over 2-3 million copies worldwide can be said to have mass appeal.  To get mass appeal, a game has to be easy to play, addictive, and difficult enough to master that there is replay value.

Everything else just changes based on marketing and perception.

Whoever thinks that Mario is a 'hardcore' game is quite frankly hugely mistaken and you need to take a look at what you think are the lines of core and casual.

You must probably think that GTA is hardcore as well.... guess what!? It's not.

Mario is hardcore yes, everyone in the hardcore gets it... but more than that it's casual as well - most hardcore want to play it, but pretty much everyone who has played 3D games generally enjoys Mario games.

This game is hardcore and casual.

Metroid Prime fails so badly because it's purely hardcore the hardcore'st of hardcore... Galaxy hits both segments.

 You're wrong.

Will you eat crow when it is proved that you are wrong because the first week number will be much more than 200 - 300k (heh).

No you wont, because you're wrong ALL the time about everything and you never seem to realise or admit as such.

OriGin i think you need to calm down before you post, stores in japan only received 700k units, i don't think they plan on it blowing everyone one away.