OKAY, so firstly the misinformation here is Capcom is not targeting 4 million on Day 1, the goal is to reach 4 million sales before the fiscal year is over (so a little over two months, RE7 releases on January 24th, and the fiscal year ends on March 31st, so basically two months and a week).
So here are some things working FOR and AGAINST RE7 sales-wise:
FOR RE7's SUCCESS-
01.) Resident Evil Brand Name
RE7 is guaranteed to basically sell at least a million copies on brand name alone, the series has proven this time and time again the RE brand is still surprisingly strong even despite misfires here and there in the public eye. It's why the RE films keep doing so well despite not being good films, or why RE6 sold so much despite not rave reviews, and even spin-offs with little to no marketing manage to sell over 1 million copies. Especially as many fans who may have given up on the series are willing to give RE7 a shot. Speaking of this..
02.) Timing the release of RE7 with the final RE Film (Resident Evil: The Final Chapter)
The final live-action RE film releases in the same week as RE7. The films are always box office successes and critical failures, but if Capcom doesn't put a RE7 trailer before the live-action film, they done fucked up. It's a great way to raise brand awareness with more casual consumers and even make them aware of RE7 in turn.
03.) That PSVR support
People with PSVR's want a killer app game to go with it. PSVR has pushed a few million units, hell even in Japan of all things it's sold over 500,000 units (in Japan alone). Resident Evil 7 is the first major game releasing for PSVR, when many people want that full PSVR experience. RE7's timing is perfect for the PSVR, and I don't doubt RE7 may sell more because of its PSVR support as the first full-fledged game released for the thing.
04.) Critical Reception
We won't know how the game does until we do, but I have a bit of confidence in it. I think it'll probably get 80-86 Metacritic, but the recent impressions from people who played 3-5 hours of RE7 was glowing from everyone from IGN to Eurogamer to PC Gamer to Games Radar. There were even a couple people who said their 3-5 hours with RE7 wasn't just very good, but their absolute favorite gaming experience they've had all year. And every preview mentioned this was the first RE game to stop chasing RE4's tale and be something special on its own, pulling from a lot but never feeling derivative and it's own thing, and most mentioned their time with RE7 surprised them with how good it was. Maybe the rest of the game falls and I think by nature the game will have some people who are more glowing towards it and those who are more critical, but 3-5 hours is a pretty decent chunk to form an opinion off of, and it's looking like the game won't be a critical failure at least at this point.
05.) Horror Fans
This will probably help less than I'd like honestly, but RE7 is the first really big studio horror game with marketing behind it. Alien: Isolation and Until Dawn went on to sell 2 million units each, but both also weren't marketed that well and sold basically on good word of mouth and horror fans. But the non-indie studio big-budget horror games from the last 7 years can be counted on one hand. It's hard to predict sales as this is the most a horror game has been marketed in years, but I guess we'll see how thirsty horror fans are for something like RE7.
06.) YouTubers
While I don't think RE7 is made specifically as a "YouTuber bait" game like some call it (like some assume all first-person horror games are), RE7 is pretty much guaranteed to be played by all major YouTubers (the demo already was as well), plus with the demo videos and then the full game that means RE7 is getting some serious exposure among these people. While's it's unclear how much LP's transition into sales, there are some games that manage to sell a lot based on LP's almost entirely, and some games that saw big sales boosts after YouTubers started covering it, so we shall see how it effects RE7 since it's already pretty much guaranteed and already thanks to the demo been getting a lot of YouTuber coverage.
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AGAINST RE7's SUCCESS:
01.) It's not co-op
While many have asked for the series to drop co-op play and focus on single player, and RE7 does that, it does mean there won't be the push for people telling their friends to pick it up to play with their friends and some people won't be interested due to the lack of co-op which they picked the RE games up for. I'm pretty certain part of the reason RE6 went on to sell 4.8 million copies in its first couple months is because of co-op, even despite a disappointing critical reception.
02.) It's not action, but horror
This is hard to gauge, since as I said above RE7 is really the first horror game in years to get a serious marketing campaign. But action is easier to sell than horror (I say disappointingly as a horror enthusiast), so this could work against RE7. People who want action are more critical than they'd be otherwise on RE7 for its horror focus already, and I doubt casual audiences will feel differently (even though RE7 has action, it's not the focus).
03.) The reception of RE6
Part of why RE5 sold so well was because of the positive reception of RE4, with RE7 being the major entry following RE6 there's a high chance it'll effect RE7's sales even if it is a radically different direction, many who will be more cautious of it or take the 'wait and see' approach.
04.) 4 Million is a big number
I don't doubt RE7 will sell 2 million units in its first couple months with everything in mind, and I think it'll eventually go on to sell 4 million, especially if it turns out to be a critical darling and if word of mouth is positive, but that's over time and not in the first two and a half months. But the goal being 4 million is hard to say. Like... Evil Within, Alien Isolation, and Until Dawn all sold over 1 million units in its first month and all went on to sell 2 million units, those are the easiest thing to compare it to. But then none of those had Resident Evil's brand name power or the marketing push RE7 has either (or VR support for thirsty PSVR users), so it's a bit hard to say... But 4 million is a big number.
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It's hard to say, but there's definitely for and against RE7's success here.
