The fact is that the last Elders Scrolls game has sold more than the last Gears game. You can use meaningless terms as mainstream, but sales are sales. Gears 2 has sold less than Oblivion so there's no reason to believe that Gears 3 will sell more than Skyrim will. Oblivion has also been around for 2 years longer than Gears 2, it's had more time to sell. But this is a rather silly argument. I don't think my store is doing a midnight release, but personally I don't care. I'll just pick it up after class on release day. Those extra two years will hardly warrant any extra. Oblivion came out in 2006. I think the sales in 2010 and 2011 will probably not even reach the 100,000. Which is a small number compared to the total sales.