My instincts still have this game at a huge debut despite that article.  Why?

Wii hardware went up, for no apparent reason in the week leading to launch - by Famitsu, MC, and Vgchartz - by 10%.

Zelda debuted with what, a 250k Wii at launch?  Mario is much more popular than Zelda in Japan.

Also, even a fairly complex game on a limited userbase - Sunshine - sold 339k in week one - to 20% of GC owners.

Wii's version of Mario should see at a minimum a 10% attach ratio, and that would suggest 350k+ week one sales - at the very least.

I think 550k to 600k is realistic week one, although most of the purchases I think will come this weekend.  I'd be surprised if the game moved more than 150k/200k day one, but only sales of under ~75k for day one would truly be indicative of a bad debut, at least in my eyes.

3d mario games aren't as big as 2d ones in japan. even SM64 only sold around 2 million there, but this game will still do really well.

i expect 300-600k sales first week and selling strongly for the rest of the year for JPN.

its gonna be MASSIVE in NA though, i think SMG can possibly do 5 million lifetime there. even sunshine sold 3 million in america.

Kotaku use to be pro-Nintendo but have switched to Team Sony in my eyes. Nintendo games get very little coverage but I always see lots of articles on Sony products. They even thought Lair was great. I am on their site everyday and I think I've seen 2 Galaxy related stories this week. I see at least one new MGS4 story everyday.

Both Kotaku and Joystiq are decidedly anti-Wii right now. I think it has to do with the fact that not only are they on top...but they are doing it off the backs of the casuals. They jump at the chance to talk about its dearth of mini-games or how much flailing one gets to do in such and such game. I suppose, though, that they are just snide. Probably about everything (except pumpkins and papercraft). I used to really like going there for news, but I think that they think they're comedians now. Maybe someone should go take that ban hammer and start knocking off some of the writers, too.

So some guy went to the store and didn't see a line so that means it's selling slowly? While I think most people hear were greatly overestimating Mario with predictions of 600k and up for week one, this report hardly means a thing.

you expect more people to be there, but many people had preorders, and many people have to work on friday morning. Gonna wait for first day sales, and even more telling will be the first week sales. Even if it sells 300k on day 1, that still leaves 400k on the shelves, so just because you can find the game at many places doesn't mean it did badly either.

Here is what I think happened. Most everyone who wanted the game preordered it KNOWING it was going to be a big title. Preorder ususally means you can pick up your copy within 48 hours. So why would people wait in line? Thats a waste of time. The majority probably preordered and they will go pick up their copy within the next 2 days. Chill out. SMG will still sell millions.

I think so too! Nintendo seemed to advertise this game a lot in Japan just like they advertised Wii Sports. In the end it will do Wii Sports numbers and it will have similar legs and become the Wii's number one game in Japan (Wii Sports is sold separately in Japan).

first day sales are 130~k according to sinobi.