OMGS4: Sales exceed 1 million in Europe during first week

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Jun 24th 2008 at 10:40AM }

Senior stealth citizen news now, with European Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots sales exceeding one million units in its first week. Konami has called the demand for the game "exceptional," noting that the final chapter in Solid Snake's spiraling saga has seen high sales in all European territories. The 25,000 Limited Edition copies made available to the continent were "almost immediately" sold out. Figures.

The PlayStation 3 sneak-em-up has seen similar success in Japan, outselling its closest competitor by a factor of 12. If you're among the million Metal Gears Sold and don't know your Gekkos from your Frogs, be sure to download the free MGS4 Database from the Euro PlayStation Network this Thursday.

Tags: Guns-of-the-Patriots, Hideo-Kojima, Kojima-Productions, Konami, Metal-Gear-Solid, Metal-Gear-Solid-4, MGS4, Snake

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

mr nimblewick @ Jun 24th 2008 10:44AM

My god, PS3 owners were really desperate for a game.

mr nimblewick @ Jun 24th 2008 10:45AM

Oh, sorry, THIS game. They were desperate for THIS game.

arrrgh @ Jun 24th 2008 10:56AM

i lold

Raikage (GOLDEN Gun Of The Patriots) @ Jun 24th 2008 11:03AM

Haha that was totally on purpose!

deaftly @ Jun 24th 2008 11:07AM

Well played sir!

browntown @ Jun 24th 2008 11:07AM

Thats like saying 360 owners were desperate for gears for war when it launched.

borland502 (SDF - Macross Ring) @ Jun 24th 2008 11:15AM

Deliberate or not...well played sir.

Talryyn @ Jun 24th 2008 11:32AM

I thought this was shipped not sold??? Since EU does not really have could/easy sources for tracking sales?

why not the LS2LS7? @ Jun 24th 2008 2:45PM

It is shipped. You can't say shipped isn't sold, it depends on which level of the channel you are talking about.

If you want to be clear, say "shipped" or "sell through", don't try to redefine sold preclude it meaning shipped, cause for the publishers, sold does mean shipped.

bigsofty @ Jun 24th 2008 6:48PM

At £50 a pop in the UK, this is B.S.

Neebs @ Jun 24th 2008 10:44AM

That's actually quite astounding.

Neebs @ Jun 24th 2008 10:45AM

That was also my 1000th Joystiq comment too!

mr nimblewick @ Jun 24th 2008 10:46AM

Congrats...

But that made me check who many stupid comments I've made here, and now I'm depressed.

Jakka @ Jun 24th 2008 11:40AM

I was well on my way to 500 before I got banned.

religiousjedi @ Jun 24th 2008 10:45AM

Picture=win.

SAGExSDX @ Jun 24th 2008 10:46AM

Obligatory comment saying to take note of the "shipped" keyword in the official press release statement. It's 1 million shipped to retailers.

"Konami has shipped over one million copies of the game to retailers across Europe to meet the exceptional demand, with high sales confirmed in all European territories and securing the Number One position in the relevant sales charts."

Marty @ Jun 24th 2008 10:48AM

Which makes one wonder what the big deal is. Shipped obviously does not equal sold, and if they hadn't have shipped a million units to retailers, they'd be pretty damned stupid.

FOXHOUND @ Jun 24th 2008 10:57AM

...where's the link to the press release?

SAGExSDX @ Jun 24th 2008 11:02AM

@FOXHOUND: Usually on Joystiq articles, you would click the Source/Read link at the bottom of the article.

@Marty: It's the usual PR flag waving. Every company does it.

Ludwig Kietzmann @ Jun 24th 2008 11:15AM

"Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH has announced that sales of its newly-released Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots title for PLAYSTATION®3 have exceeded one million units within the first week."

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 24th 2008 11:15AM

I love how you quote the Press release and even call into question the ability to read but fail to do so yourself. Quote the first paragraph of the release..

"Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH has announced that sales of its newly-released Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots title for PLAYSTATION®3 have exceeded one million units within the first week."

Note the use of the words SALES. Then it goes on to mention shipped is over one million as well to meet demand.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 24th 2008 11:16AM

Damn, Ludwig beat me to it. Well played, sir, well played.

Fernando Rocker @ Jun 24th 2008 11:45AM

Sorry sheppy and Ludwig, but the numbers are from shipped games.

http://kotaku.com/5019089/mgs4-ships-a-million-in-europe

It sold 400,000 first two days in EU and 200,000 until this week. 600,000 in total.

Raikage (GOLDEN Gun Of The Patriots) @ Jun 24th 2008 11:53AM

Fernando... It's still the best game ever made :P

FOXHOUND @ Jun 24th 2008 12:01PM

My apologies. Didn't see the link at the time of commenting. Much thanks for the referral. :]

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 24th 2008 12:09PM

Fernando...

1. Don't link to Kotaku. You got in trouble for this in the past.

2. Europe (and every region, actually) lacks any tracking service that goes beyond 63% accurate. If Konami is seeing more orders, they assume the game is either sold out or sold very low.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Jun 24th 2008 3:49PM

Folks, you're both making the same mistake.

When a game is shipped, it is sold to Konami and Konami is making the press release.

If you want to indicate copies sold at retail, say sell-through.

I don't see any reason to get excited about shipped versus sell-through here. If MS can make their Halo 3 claims based upon shipped and the internet doesn't have a fit, there's no reason to go after Konami.

These million copies will sell easily, even if they didn't sell immediately (and I think they didn't).

Wes @ Jun 25th 2008 12:23AM

@Raikage

The best game ever made? Har har har. Starcraft is still #1 in my opinion. Its a game which I would say nearly 20 years after its original release date is still selling. :P. Starcraft was a game with so much mass adoption across gamers. I swear that in the 90s probably 80-90% of all gamers played starcraft to a degree. Heck, there was more than 1 copy of Starcraft sold in Korea per person. Partially due to game cafes, bots, etc but still the point stands.

I hope we remember MSG4 in 2028 fondly and it would be kind of cool if 80-90% of all gamers played it at some point. Some people spend 3-6 years playing single player and multiplayer. Matches against players, bots, the custom maps for stuff like v-tech paintball, starcraft rpgs, galaxtic defenders, etc.

Honestly, I think even the die-hard msg4 fans will have difficulty playing msg4 for 3 years straight, let alone 6 years.

lawrence @ Jun 24th 2008 10:48AM

my this by far the best game of this time. not even the legendary miyamoto can compete with kojima. mario officially is dead.this is the ultimate videogame

Marty @ Jun 24th 2008 10:50AM

Wow, let's not go too far with it there. I highly doubt that this game, however good it may be, will go down in history as being a better game than any other ever created before it.

mr nimblewick @ Jun 24th 2008 10:55AM

"best game of this time"

You mean this month? I'll give it that.

arrrgh @ Jun 24th 2008 10:57AM

hey fangirl, wanna pull your lips out of kojima's asshole? it's one game

arrrgh @ Jun 24th 2008 10:59AM

Maybe we should count how many copies of ever kojima game were sold against every miyamoto game....

I wonder... who's dead again?

Raikage (GOLDEN Gun Of The Patriots) @ Jun 24th 2008 11:01AM

I agree, this IS the ultimate videogame... now I don't agree with the whole Miyamoto sucks part though...

Imagine if they developed a game together!

Anni @ Jun 24th 2008 11:04AM

"not even the legendary miyamoto can compete with kojima"

Oh dude, I would KILL to see that Brawl match.

DangerMouse @ Jun 24th 2008 11:09AM

Mario? Mario?!?! MARRRRRRRIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Mr.ESC @ Jun 24th 2008 11:08AM

Lawrence you get no sympathy from me...b*tch.

I fight for my friends…I also do crack and Heroine :D

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fQPVIkTySJ4

borland502 (SDF - Macross Ring) @ Jun 24th 2008 11:23AM

The best video game of all time is Pong. No cut scenes, no polygons, no vector graphics, no dialog, no plot ... just pure game.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 24th 2008 11:24AM

arghhh, if it was a perfect world, that fight might be fair. Well, okay, maybe not completely fair. But this is a tragic broken world were a tragicly broken piece of annual bricksoft known as Mario Party will always break a million in sells. You know, some developers actually have to WORK for their success.

Vidikron (FU) @ Jun 24th 2008 12:29PM

Honestly, I love MGS4 and it may well be my favorite game this generation, but why even bother comparing it to Mario? They are completely different games and I don't see how one could ever kill the other.

tmacairjordan87 @ Jun 24th 2008 12:53PM

Except miyamoto has never even attempted to make a video game like MGS. He sticks with simplistic stuff.

lawrence @ Jun 24th 2008 2:18PM

haters are always hating .i bet every one that just commented just have a wii and nothing to do so have to blogging instead of on there wii. go play some zelda nintendo b$tches.

arrrgh @ Jun 24th 2008 3:47PM

Even WITHOUT mario party, fiddy, that fight is FAR from fair.

Kojima is a footnote in the annuls of gaming history compared to miyamoto

NATO_Duke @ Jun 24th 2008 4:13PM

I'm with Vid. Comparing MGS and Mario is just stupid. They aren't in the same genre whatsoever. Lawrence is just desperate for attention, because he obviously has been skipping school for a long time now.

Mr Khan @ Jun 24th 2008 4:43PM

Miyamoto makes games, Kojima tells stories. It's kinda hard to directly compare the two (which is not a diss against Kojima, if that's what it sounded like. It's the vast difference in the WAY they make games is what i meant)

lawrence @ Jun 24th 2008 5:06PM

nato u answer too much ...go take comment break...you probably dont own any system except the xbox and god of war 3 wont be on ps2..mgs4 is the biest game still yet created

xFenixKnightx @ Jun 24th 2008 10:55AM

Xbox360: Would've been over 1 million "SOLD" with me.

NintendoWii: I know huh.

PS3: You WISH!

browntown @ Jun 24th 2008 11:09AM

I highly doubt this game would sell as well on the 360 as ps3. 360 owners keep complaining about not liking cutscenes and this is a niche title. Just look at DMC4. With such a larger userbase, it couldn't sell more than the ps3 version. If this was on the wii though, it woulda sold more over its lifetime probably.