@Star Scream - "I think numbers are good for what it is (even if Capcom blatantly overshipped)"

Ok, but Capcom haven't blatantly overshipped, it is retailers that ordered and are responsible for the number of games shipped.

@outlawauron - "Halo 3 or FF13 selling 1 million would be a major flop"

Wrong analogy, unless I am mistaken Halo 3 sold 120k in Japan...

Well, certain factions aren't going to compare it to the other console Monster Hunter games because, if they can compare it to the portable versions, they'll be able to call it a "flop".

yeah ofcourse because thats completely fair right?

MH went mainstream & became a phenomenon on PSP

but noooo.....we should compare MH3 to the PS2 MH's.....which were in fact released before MH went mainstream & became a phenomenon in Japan

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comparing them to the PS2 versions is very silly

If MH3 been released on PS2 after the series had gone BIG on PSP.....it would would have sold as much as the wii one has sold....or even more.

What should we compare it too? MH4 whenever that comes out

for now MH is like Pokemon in terms of sales.

I expected it to do 1 million in the first month, it didn't so it is a disappointment in terms of sales for me, just like killzone 2 is & LBP is, but MGS4 isn't.

It is tons of fair. Would you compare Pokemon Battle Revolution to Pokemon Diamond? If you say no, I could do the same thing you are doing. "But Pokemon Battle revolution released AFTER it became popular on handhelds". Monster Hunter 3 has the same values as the other console games. The Handheld games deviate from these values. The Handheld games focus on local multiplayer, something much bigger in Japan than the Online Multiplayer that the Console games focus on. By the way Monster Hunter 2 came out 3 months before the Monster Hunter Freedom. That proves one thing. Monster Hunter became popular because of the PSP, not that of natural progression. That means the Monster Hunter Tri should be considered as a sequel to the consoles games rather than the PSP ones. That makes my comparison to the console version much MORE  'fair' and valid than comparing it to the PSP ones. Actually the trends between the two games speak for themselves. Monster Hunter 2 was much more frontloaded than freedom, proving that they target different values and therefore audiences. The audiences may overlap due to love fore the series, but they aren't 1:1 the same.

I think we should judge Monster Hunter 3 sales against both previous console games in the series AND the portable games. Maybe I don´t make any sense here. What I mean is this:

It were in my opinion never realistic to expect MH3 to sell as well as the PSP Monster Hunter games because the series are clearly very well suited for handhelds (just like Pokemon). Most people didn´t expect MH3 to perform that well either, there were a few who thought the game would perform crazy PSP like numbers but most expected realistic sales in the 1-1,5 million range (which it most likely will reach in the end).

It is not fair either to compare MH3 sales to previous consolegames on PS2, because like you pointed out the series has since then gone supernova on PSP and has gotten huge hype since. (there were a few stubborn people who still expected MH3 to do worse or only tie MH2, let´s view them as the nutties on the other end of the spectrum of the nutties that thought the game would sell 3 million).

I think the realistic expectations for MH3 sales should be put somewhere in between the previous consolegames and the previous portable games for the reasons I stated above and from the looks of it that´s exactly where the game will end up.

MH3 will sell a million copies in Japan, easily outdoing the previos consolegames but nowhere near the portable numbers. I think with that in mind MH3 is a big hit.

SC - You can't really compare sales of games to after it became popular.

Example: Star Ocean. It didn't get good sales till 2 on the PS2. You can't compare SO4 sales to SO

Monster Hunter became a phenomenom on PSP because of portability.

Consoles aren't portable and thus, Monster Hunter won't enjoy the same level of success that a portable iteration would.

With that said, it's not unfair to compare console Monster Hunter games to other console Monster Hunter games.

Not saying Monster Hunter 3 didn't benefit from the PSP versions' success though.

Exactly... that's why 1 million =/= 4 million....

Also dare I say Monster Hunter 3 will be the best selling Monster Hunter in the west if we assume there is no subscription? Why you may ask? Well simply because it is the most online focused Monster Hunter as of yet, and the Western audiences support online much more than those of Japan.