Why is everyone predicting numbers higher then GOW 1 when the PS3 traditionally undersells PS2 franchises by 10-20% and GOW 2 sold less then GOW1?

i'd say... 2.3 Million?  Upper limit of 3 million?

That's lifetime by the way.

The only prediction I can make right now is that GOW III will sell 3mil + lifetime

I don't know if you noticed but the games in this generation sell more than the last gen.

And when I see " only " 1M for Others, I say " there is a problem "
I'm french and I can say in France ( so no doubt in all Europe ) GOD OF WAR franchise is one of the best game for us !!

And when I see, Uncharted 2 sell about 1.2M in Europe although it's not a BLOCKBUSTER like God of War III !!! 1M for God of War III isn't enough :)

And the sales of a game in this generation doesn't depend on user base !
We'll see with Halo 3 for exemple ...

With some ads ( like for Uncharted 2 ) in Europe
I say :

1.6M for Others
2.2M for US
0.12M for Japan

So 3.92M-4M LTD ( And I think, GOW III will beat MGS4 for sales LTD --> 5M )

And

1.1M-1.2M first week
( 700k US, 450k Others, 30k Jap )

NA: 2.5 million
EU: 1.5 million
JP: 50k

So, a little over 4 million, high end.

Because of MGS3 and MGS4

Because the PS3/360/Wii had launched in March 2007

Because piracy was rampant

Because there were many quality exclusives

Because internet hype wasn't as powerful as it is today.

I crossed down the irrelevant arguments.

I can cross out, too! Care to explain why they are less relevant than the PS2 having an enormous userbase full of people who had no idea what God of War was?

1) MGS4 has yet to outsell MGS2.

2) The launched arguements... don't really matter, since often times it's the first game in the series that sells more.  See FF, or even... GOW.

3) Not... really to pirate for PS2 you needed to get a chip sautered into your system...

4) So your saying the PS3 dosen't have many quality exclusives?  I'd disagree.  Also why does "exclusive" matter.

5) Internet hype doesn't mean jack.  How many times have we seen highly hyped internet games fail this generation?

Have you got any research to back up that claim? Maybe people just don't like it?

I for one couldn't care less about GoW. I don't care about that age and the character is just plain ugly. To me, DMC is far superior in every single way.

1) True. But it should get there eventually. And MGS2 was a huge seller.

2) Often, the first game on the console sells the most. But they do get a bit of a rejuvenation when they change generation.

3) Go to any large market in any third world country. Easy, cheap and takes about an hour. They even test it for you. And actually, they don't put anything in, they take something out.

4) Compared to the PS2, the PS3 has hardly any. I guess you're right about exclusives, but just generally in games...just in that genre, the PS2 had a lot of quality, which the PS3 lacks.

5) Not that many, compared to games with internet hype that have done well. And for the most part, those games sucked, or were extremely niche and never going to sell anyway. They are also, for the most part (though not ALWAYS) on Wii.