Halo 3 drives Xbox 360 ownership in the US
By Kyle Hanson
Reports are spreading across the Internet that Halo 3 has recently surpassed the 5 million mark in sales worldwide. While this is an astounding achievement in and of itself, it gets a bit better for the folks at Bungie. Of the 5 million copies, 4.1 million were sold in the United States. Taking this figure and merging it with the most recent sales numbers for Xbox 360 in America, 7.9 million, shows just how pervasive the game has become in the few months since its release.
That means that for every ten Xbox 360 owners at least 5 probably own Halo 3. And this, of course, is not even factoring in the amount of people who have rented the game, or played it at a friend’s house.
Many Microsoft detractors might take this as evidence that the second console in the Xbox family is having the same “Halo machine” kind of issues as its predecessor. With games like Mass Effect, The Orange Box, and Bioshock all coming out within months of each other, that argument would be difficult to sustain.
In any event, whether a good or bad sign for Microsoft’s console, it is certainly good news for both their pocketbooks and Bungie itself.
With its game in so many homes and the entire Xbox playing populace aware of their achievements and skills it will be difficult for their next few games to be anything less than best-sellers.
And with news that there are more Halo games to come, Halo Wars and Peter Jackson’s secret project to name but a few, Bungie must be very happy with their current position in the gaming industry.
Kyle Hanson is a guest writer at GAMER.BLORGE.com.
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December 20th, 2007
And this is the very reason 08 will be a very different year for the 360 regardless of their hopes to sell more than this year. After this holiday season sales will decline.
December 20th, 2007
That is very possible Giterdone. Looking into 2008 I can’t really think of too many 360 games that I am dieing to have. Perhaps Microsoft “blew their load” too early and will have a rough year trying to catch up to the Wii.
December 20th, 2007
I am surpised that such a mediocre title sells so well in the United States, and it clearly illustrates the kind of people the Xbox 360 does well with - the same kind of people that buy random-FPS-iteration-X every year.
These are the people that think Bioshock is an evolutionary step forward, instead, it’s poor-man’s System Shock. It’s not half as deep as a title from more than seven years ago. It surely appears that the less intellectual of players are fawning over the Halos of the world, and 360 definately looking like a one-trick poney with things like this. Yahtzee’s got to be a happy devil, he’ll have dozens of inane titles to mock for the Escapist.
December 21st, 2007
yada yada yada
December 21st, 2007
Hey Hal, go play some chess or something…