Industry analysts now predict, following the Building Chart numbers which project national sales each Wednesday morning based on merchants representing 90% of the music sales market, that West’s album will sell 750,000 copies in its first week.  That would break Linkin Park’s 2007 record of 623,000 copies for its album Minutes to Midnight.

Still, the 750,000 copies would fall short of West’s last album, 2005’s Late Registration, which sold 860,000 copies in the first week. 

50 Cent, it has been predicted following the Nielsen numbers, will fall short of the 1.1 million he started his last album with, 2005’s The Massacre.

The rivalry between the two was stoked last month when 50 Cent said he would retire if West’s album outsold his.  "I just don't view him as competition based on our previous sales histories," he told The Associated Press.

Billboard senior editor Jonathan Cohen said 50 Cents slumping numbers have been in the works for a while: "I don't think it's helped 50 that so many of these prerelease singles that have come out have fizzled on the charts right away. There were street date changes. It has just not been a good run-up to this record for him."

As for West, Cohen believes the incidents of last weeked, specifically the sophomoric tantrum he threw backstage at MTV’s Video Music Awards (which you can see here), followed by his Z100 interview saying he would never work with the network again, haven’t seemed to affect his album sales.  “These tantrums he goes on, these outlandish comments he makes, they don't really hurt him.  If anything, they've got more people interested in what he's all about."