It was supposed to release for the Christmas season, but they delayed it to give it more polishing time. According to the main guy's twitter, it's gone gold now with plenty of time to spare, so we should expect a well polished, high quality game. Hopefully.

LOL

Yeah, agreed.  The way things are looking now, I think Ubi's 500k estimate isn't too far off.  But with better promotion and positioning, I think the game could be much, much bigger.

Sorry Stof, you lost me at

Yes I do. I still think that as the game that delivers on the promises made by Red Steel

The day Ubisoft cut multiplayer, I halved my predictions for how much the game would sell. The multiplayer was by far the best aspect of the first game

So far I think Ubisoft has the right idea re: marketing, except that they won't do it enough. I doubt there will be too many TV ads, but what they're doing now focuses on showing the player in relation to the in game action, rather than just what happens on screen. It makes it look fun, and it makes the controls look natural and accessible.

It's a pity that there won't be the local-multiplayer viral effect, but I bet it will still get great word of mouth and many sales will come from trying the game in someone else's house.

I'm not too worried about the lack of internet hype. Plenty of the games that have become big on Wii had little or no internet hype.

Oh boy, people actually said Guitar Hero wouldn't be an easy transition? Just because a few networking issues and storage? I don't even know how to respond to that.

Anyhow, I'm sure bringing MW to the Wii was a far more difficult transition. I won't debate COD being "casual." I just know it doesn't appeal to Wii owners as much.

Yep, peop,e said it'd always lag on Wii because of dlc.  Same was said about Rock Band too.

Had MWR launched alongside COD4, I bet it have pushed 3m+.

Well, I guess it wasn't much of an issue was it? And potential profits of DLC motivated them to figure it out.

Maybe it would have sold 3 million, after several years ofcourse. But MW didn't need the Wii, it was guaranteed to get the least amount of sales, and it couldn't offer the same quality as the HD consoles.

Also, creating a Wii port is always a completely new project. The PC, 360, and PS3 can easily share a game given the similar specs.

No one saying MW "needs" Wii.  Hell, Guitar Hero and Rock Band didn't "need" Wii.

All that's being said is that there was a missed opportunity with COD Wii, an opportunity to have an additional consistent line of several million sales to compliment the HD versions.  That opportunity's probably been squandered beyond redemption at this point, and even still the late and/or downgraded ports somehow manage to sell well (over a million) with almost no PR or advertising.  Money left on the table.

@ jarrod
Releasing MW on the Wii now was probably a lot cheaper than releasing it at the time of the original launch. And its still getting pretty strong sales without wasting money on advertising.

So was money left on the table? Maybe not. Will people buy MW2 on the Wii even if its a couple years late? Definitely.