Final Modern Warfare 2 preorder figures are in and as expected the game is going to be huge. The big question is - will it outperform Grand Theft Auto IV? Most analysts are agreed that Modern Warfare 2 will easily outsell GTA IV in the long term, but how about in the first week?

GTA IV sold around 4 million units on day one back in April 2008 with a similar Tuesday launch to Modern Warfare 2. Over 2.4 million units were sold in the Americas and 600,000 units in the UK. Week one sales came in at 5.92 million units - 3.38 million on Xbox360 and 2.55 million on PS3.

With total preorders across Xbox360, PS3 and PC at well over 4.5 million units and a week one of 6-7 million expected, VGChartz predicts that Modern Warfare 2 will comfortably outperform GTA IV in overall revenue - around $500 million is expected to be generated worldwide in the first week, more than any film, book or music product in history. On Xbox360 and PS3 specifically, sales combined should be very similar to GTA IV but we think that Modern Warfare 2 will see stronger splits for both the Americas vs Europe and also Xbox 360 vs PS3 than with GTA IV.

What remains to be seen at this stage is what kind of hardware boosts the title can produce - with the game expected to perform much more strongly on Xbox 360 and with specific Xbox bundles (along with the continued Walmart gift card deal in the US) it is entirely possible for Xbox 360 to end the week ahead of PS3 - this would be the first time since the PS3 slim release back in early September.

Stay tuned to VGChartz for day one and final data as it becomes available.