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Halo Sells 3 Million, Gets New Machinima

Posted by simoniker on from the stunt-driving-par-excellence dept.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the Xbox.com press release announcing "that Halo: Combat Evolved has sold more than three million copies worldwide" , by far the largest-selling software title on Microsoft's console. The press release also plugs the forthcoming PC version of Halo, which, according to Avault, will have a $30,000 team tournament devoted to it at the CPL's Winter 2003 Tournament in Dallas this December. Finally, Bungie.org has news of a great-looking new Halo trick video, called 'Winning Isn't Everything' - thanks to GameTab for providing a BitTorrent mirror for this super-skilful, stunt and exploit-filled romp.

3 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Not a surprise by kryptoknight · · Score: 2, Informative
    Halo is a great game.

    - The story is engaging.
    - The graphics are superb.
    - The gameplay is almost flawless.
    - The physics engine is great, as proven by all the trick videos like the "warthog jump" video.
    - Cooperative play option not seen in many other fps.
    - System-Link play makes it easy to set up xbox lan parties. 2 tv's + 2 xbox + 8 controllers + 7 friends = 4v4 Fun

    It is not a surprise that Halo has passed the 3 million mark. Most retailers still sell it for $50 even though it was a xbox launch game. This game has continued to push the xbox consoles sold numbers up for Microsoft.

  2. Re:a big deal? by kryptoknight · · Score: 2, Informative
    The standard xbox system which originally retailed for $199 (it's $179 now) did not come which any other game; just an extra controller.

    Bundling halo or other games were vendor specific and promotional.

    I believe that you couldn't get a NES or SNES system without a bundled game back then.

  3. Re:a big deal? by nathanh · · Score: 2, Informative

    Super Mario Brothers has been out for nearly 20 years, Mario 64 has been out for 7, and Enter the Matrix was based on a MASSIVE movie license and had tons of promotion. Halo has only been out for 2 years. Let's do some math, shall we?

    SMB: 40/18 = 2.22 million copies per year.
    Mario64: 11/7 = 1.56 million copies per year.
    Halo: 3/2 = 1.5 million per year.

    That puts Halo right up there with Mario 64 and not TOO far from SMB if you take into account the MASSIVE amount of time it's been out. Plus let's not forget that SMB was BUNDLED with the NES/Famicon while Mario 64 and Halo didn't become bundles for until later, and even then you had a choice of non-bundled usually.

    That is perhaps the dumbest analysis I have ever seen. It is ignorant beyond all reasonable measures of ignorance. Your comparisons are only valid if sales are constant for every year. It's far more likely that games have a high initial takeup, quickly dropping with far fewer units shipped over the remaining years. You might as well conclude that because The Hulk made $100 million first weekend, that it should make $50 billion over the next 10 years. Utterly stupid.