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Halo Sells 3 Million, Gets New Machinima
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 million?
Halo is arguably X-Box' flagship title. If you consider that Super Mario Bros. has sold over 40 million copies and Super Mario 64 has sold over 11 million copies (see here) and that Enter the Matrix has already sold 1 million copies in the brief time it's been released, this isn't that big a deal. Posted by an anonymous coward? More like posted by a desperate XBox sales force.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
- 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.
As other posters have mentioned, while Halo is by far the best selling X-box game, it's still vastly outsold by games for other platforms.
It really makes be wonder how big Halo could have been if Microsoft had released it for PC/Mac/etc.., as Bungie planned before they got bought, instead of using it to prop up thier doomed console venture.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
Why has it failed? Because it's still in the market place? Because it's outselling the GC (IIRC)? It's got some great games (Halo, JSRF, Oddworld: Munch's Odessy, Mech Assault, etc) and has some great things going for it too (only console with a hard drive in every unit, XBox Live). The system is also the most powerful of the big 3 out there, which means that it can keep having great looking and running games for years. The fact is, the X-Box is a fantastic console, and I'm VERY happy I own one. I know it's fun to bash MS for all they do, but they really did their homework when they decided to enter the video game market (unlike many other consoles (indream, phantom, that terrible thing that was integrated into DVD players.. the Nuon). Let's not forget that the X-Box is the ONLY console that could get a port of Doom 3 without a massive graphics rewrite (due to the graphics abilities).
You want a failed console? There are plenty. NeoGeo, Virtual Boy (which had fantastic games, system was just named wrong), TurboGraphics 16, Jaguar, Jaguar CD, Sega CD, Saturn, 32X, Lynx, 3DO, Nuon, indreama, GP32, and more (these are in the US, I know some of these succeded over seas).
Repeat after me: the X-Box HASN'T FAILED and it WON'T.
Time to just face up to the fact that MS hasn't fallen on their face like many people wanted them to.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It's only outselling GC in some countries and the GC has also been called a failure.
That's the real reason for your cheerleading; it's called denial.
Ok, first off, where do you see the word "failed" in my post? The closest I see is "doomed". And how did you miss the term 'prop-up'? As in, it would have failed, but they propped it up for now.
:
The X-box, may avoid utter failure only because MS is willing to sacrifice lots of money and potential profits to insure they can get a stranglehold on an industry later.
So, your arguments to defend the x-box are as follows
"Because it's still in the market place"
Still on the market, and still loosing money the last I heard. Both on the hardware end, and as the rumors go, on the software end with all the money MS keeps throwing around to insure they have exclusive games.
Point 2:
"It's outselling the GC"
I can only assume that you meant to limit this to 'in america', because last I heard the x-box is doing miserably overseas, while the GC is doing somewhat better than it is in the states.
In any case, they're both runners up to the PS2, and being a distant second instead of a distant third is hardly a qualification for success.
Which brings us to point 3:
"It's got some great games"
That it does, in point of fact, it's what my post was complaining about. Microsoft has bought some promising games as exclusives for their platform, but even MS can't pay for every game their platform needs. The result is a few good games, but not alot of other choices. I have some friends with x-boxes, and most of them wouldn't have even considered them if it weren't for Halo. (hence, the propping up argument)
And then there are your various claims of hardware superiority, which might have been valid if they didn't end up costing the consumer more money than competing consoles. Hitting a higher price point does not automatically make a platform superior.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
Even worse, you're born again.
You sound exactly like the Sega Saturn owners did only a decade ago. It's sad and funny at the same time.
I wrote it, so it's nice to see people reading it. And you let me see a spelling mistake I hadn't noticed before, which is now fixed.
However, you're a bit off on the layoff situation. The Xbox division only had 200 employees, and only a little over 30 of them got laid off.
But the Xbox is a complete failure in Japan, with only 385k sold in over a year on the market. And Peter Moore's thoughts on helping the Xbox in Japan certainly isn't going to help it much there (another article I wrote). Well, at least not the bringing of Western-style games to Japan, anyway.
Thursdæ
Newsie for GAF
Ironically, "born again" is not an inappropriate description for the life that old consoles gain after they go out of production. For the Saturn, it took the form of Americans discovering the vast library of Japanese titles that were never ported. For the Dreamcast, it's taken the form of home-brewed software -- Linux ports, home-grown games, MAME, emulators of other consoles... all after the console was declared "dead". It seems that "dead" in this context means "no longer generating revenue for anyone", which acts almost like a green-light for hobbyists to start working their magic. Very cool stuff.