Thats what I'm saying cringer8. Not sure who that was addressed to, but you are correct.

Oh sure - my apologies, I see what you mean now.

I still don't think it matters - most games launch around the same point of the week, and have similar sales curves. If they were different, you would see more games selling as much in week#2 as they do in week#1 - and that never happens.

Shams, another good point. That is also very true. Truthfully, Im not sure what is correct. Maybe we need ioi or TheSource to come sort things out for us. Whether it is projected week one sales (extending through Nov 4 despite the title, or just up until Nov 4th).

I personally think this 300k doesn't tell us anything, just a tried and tested formula of games normally sell 200 - 250% of first day sales in it's first week so they've applied it here.

preliminary sales aren't based on data as far as i know, they are guesses based on sales trends and extrapolating data. Many times the prelim numbers are way off to be honest. I think it's gonna be similar to that data though, it's gonna have a similar curve to a game like MP8. Many games will sell 75% of first week sales in the first day, but mario is gonna be different. If you remember that Crisis Core outsold pokemon on first day, then pokemon outsold Crisis core by something like 150k on first week sales. A game selling 130k then ending the week at 300k doesn't happen with many games. If you expect something more than 350k you're gonna be dissapointed.

Check the numbers I put up in this thread. 

Thanks for clearing all of that up, ioi. I understand now.

"1. Japanese sales run from Monday - Sunday. This is the "week" of sales. New games normally launch on a Thursday so every week all the new titles tend to have FOUR (not 3) days of sales compared to 7 days for the old games. This is normal every week."

does the thursday release mean shipping date like with the USA games thing (official release is usually the day before shops put it on shelves) or is it different in Japan.

Every game comes out on thursdays in Japan, it's like Tuesdays in America. When we do the preliminary Japanese sales and the official Japanese sales for the week, they are the same for all games. Every game that comes out on thursday has three (or four) days until the data is complete. So I don't see the point in this thread because this is the same for all games.

every single game in Japan comes out on a thursday, making it FOUR days of sales. So we take this as first week sales just like every other game so we can make comparisons between games.