Mass Effect Sells A Million, Halo 3 Sells Five

Sales news is starting to trickle out for some of the big Fall games, with the Xbox 360 so far looking very strong. BioWare's Mass Effect has sold a million copies, while Bungie's blockbuster Halo 3 has already sold over five million copies since its September 25th release date. That last figure comes from a GameDaily interview with Xbox Marketing VP Jeff Bell. Aside from noting this week's release of Halo 3's first downloadable map pack, Bell also connected these sales back to the console itself: "The reaction has been very positive. In fact, we saw incredible sales of Xbox 360 for the week of November 18, including Black Friday of more than 310,000 Xbox 360 in the U.S. alone. This is really strong momentum for us given that we're already in our third year on the market."

Comments

And the profit is?

[rustalot42684]

So, now that you've got these impressive sales, how long until Microsoft's gaming division finally turns a profit?

Re:And the profit is?

[tb3]

You need to read that article more closely. The games division showed a profit for that quarter. They're still a long way from erasing that gaping 6 billion dollar wound that the games division has created. And now that the Halo trilogy is over they're going to somehow come up with another blockbuster on the same scale, or greater.

Personally, I don't see how they're going to do it. They bought Bungie just for the game that became Halo, but other studios, like Rare, have yet to produce anything resembling a hit. I think they're screwed. They're never going to recoup the initial investment.