During the previous few days, we've learned that Metal Gear Solid 4 has been flying off shelves like there's no tomorrow. In fact, during it's first week alone (just four days of its first week, even), it's already sold by the thousands.

In Japan, the last figure reported was half a million in sales for MGS4. Over at Europe, sales were well over a million. But these are sales. Ever wondered how large the supply of copies really is to begin with?

Coming from Famitsu, we hear that Kazuo Hirai has confirmed a whopping total of three million units that they've shipped worldwide, thus setting quite a record.

Just so you know, "shipped units" doesn't necessarily equate to "units sold". We still don't have a solid figure of how many units MGS4 has sold worldwide. Just shipped.

In the investor's meeting (the same meeting in which the PSN download service was revealed) where the figure was revealed, Hirai also noted that MGS4 helped move PS3 hardware sales too.