Will Halo 3 Sell More Day 1 Copies Than Halo 2 (2.38M) In NA?

[Shifty Geezer]

Looks like AWOL is the poll winner

 

[JPT]

Plus I expect Halo fans to finally buy 360 in September (and later throughout 4th quarter)

I would think most HALO fans already have gotten a 360 to play the other FPS games already released on the 360, ie Gears and LP etc. Which would mean in my book that H3 will not push that many more 360's.
Or is the general consus that the majority of Halo fans have waited until H3 arrives to upgrade to 360?

 

[Acert93]

Since Microsoft announced only dollar-based sales, people are trying to make an estimate of it for unit sales.

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=17607

Yesterday they were claiming 2.48M Stealth edit!

Based on the $78 ASP for the first 8 hours, I did my own math on my blog.

Halo 3 was destined to break sales records. The only question was: which ones and by how much? The previous entry into the franchise, Halo 2, has sold about 8M copies world wide. Of which 2.38M ($125M) of those were first day sales in North America. Could Halo 3 best Halo 2?

With 1.7M pre-orders in the United States (a record in its own right) it appeared a matter of formality that Halo 3 would crush Halo 2 sales. And right on que, it is being widely reported that Halo 3 has broken single day entertainment sales with a whopping $170M in first day sales in North America alone. This total bests Halo 2 (the previous record holder) as well as surpassing Spiderman 3 opening weekend sales ($151M; $59M from opening night). 1.8M copies were sold in the first 8 hours, underlining the gravity of the Halo 3 hype with campers lining up for the midnight release.

Of great interest is that MS didn't release first day unit sales for Halo 3. Why?

The easy, and most probable, answer is that Halo 3 didn't outsell Halo 2 in unit sales.
http://www.nextgenthinktank.com/node/5
Halo 2 was released in 2004 with a retail price of $50. Starting in 2005, games on "next generation" consoles from Microsoft and Sony have typically released at $60. Further, Halo 3 has three SKUs:

$60 Halo 3
$70 Halo 3 Limited Edition
$130 Halo 3 Legendary Edition

The average sales price (ASP) for Halo 3 is reportedly $78. With $170M in sales, that would break down to about 2.18M unit sales for first day Halo 3 sales--marginally below the 2.38M first day Halo 2 sales. Which would explain the absence of unit sales in the Microsoft press release.

What does this say, if anything, for future Halo 3 sales?

For Microsoft, the positive is that there are 6M Halo 2 owners who still haven't picked up Halo 3 to, "Finish the Fight". Microsoft recently noted that about half of Xbox 360 owners didn't own an Xbox and that there remains a substantial user base playing Halo 2 on the original Xbox, so a conversion of some users over to the 360 seems likely. Gears of War sales would also indicate that Halo 3 could have serious legs, much like Halo 2. Looking at world wide sales, Gears of War sold 1M in 2 weeks, took about 5 weeks for 2M, at about 10 weeks Gears of War exceeded 3M, and sold 4M in about 18 weeks.

Further, Microsoft has positioned Halo 3 early in the holiday period which will have a direct impact on Halo 3 sales. Microsoft noticed with the release of Fable (September 2004) that the title had strong initial sales, but instead of tapering off as software tends to do, Fable had a stronger than expected secondary boost in sales during the holiday period. Fable sales can be partially explained by consumer holiday activity and the marketing echo (or is that halo?) through the holiday period. Typically, November console sales are roughly 100% better than October sales and December sales are 100% better than November sales. This theme held true for the Xbox 360 last holiday season. From April to October the Xbox 360 averaged 240K units per month in North American (based on NPD figures). December sales jumped to 511K units (roughly 2x better), and December sales jumped again to 1,100K sales (roughly 4x better than average monthly sales, 2x better than November).

With a September release Halo 3 was able to capture the early marketing buzz in September and is now in a position to capitolize on strong November and December Xbox 360 sales in a way that Halo 2 and Gears, both released in November of their respective release years, were unable to leverage. Segregating the product marketing from the traditionally strong holiday sales could result in a large windfall for Microsoft and Bungie. On the back of strong Halo marketing and remarkable critical reviews it seems likely that Xbox 360 cosole sales will be brisk this holiday season--with many purchasers picking up a copy of Halo 3.

Considering the historic software adoption numbers of Xbox 360 owners it isn't unreasonable to suggest that Halo 3 could be knocking on the 5M mark by the end of 2007.

Of course there are some relative negatives hiding in the numbers. Microsoft's recent admission to the infamous, "Red Rings of Death" may continue to linger in consumer minds and hinder Xbox 360 unit sales. The lack of a spring price drop may place unnatural demand on supply channels this holiday as well--especially with the late transition to 65nm CPU (and GPU?) units arriving in channels. And while Microsoft can note that half of Xbox 360 owners didn't own an Xbox, it does raise the question: Where are those 18M missing Xbox owners? Were they all waiting for Halo 3?

The tie rate for Halo 3-to-Xbox 360 units is also very high. Halo 2 was released in November 2004 when the Xbox platform was nearing 19M units (33% attach rate); the 360 currently has less than 12M units sold world wide. The good news is that percentage wise more consumers have picked up Halo 3 on the 360 than Xbox gamers did Halo 2 at launch (12.5% versus 18.8%), but at this point in time Microsoft's 360 platform has 7M fewer consumers to currently sell to. The cieling for sales is much lower which could bring Halo 3 sales to a crashing halt sooner than later.

The non-preorder sales are also interesting. Of Day-1 sales, only about 500K were non-preorders (1.7M pre-orders; 2.18M first day sales). For comparison Halo 2 had 1.5M preorders and sold 2.38M Day-1 copies (almost 900K non-preorder sales). While it is true that Halo 2 was released during the busy holiday season, the number of Halo 3 "campers" who purchased Halo 3 immediately upon release (about 1.8M copies) raises the question:

What is the ceiling on Halo 3 sales?

The answer will largely depend on Xbox and Halo 2 gamers who haven't "Jumped In-" to the Xbox 360 scene... yet.

My break down uses the suspecious $78 ASP figure, but based on the fact they didn't release hard #s for units sold I think it seems fair to say they didn't break 2.38M copies. That said, my local Wal*mart was out of 360s (fully stocked last week) and while I was there yesterday they were still selling copies of Halo 3.

 

[Acert93]

I would think most HALO fans already have gotten a 360 to play the other FPS games already released on the 360, ie Gears and LP etc. Which would mean in my book that H3 will not push that many more 360's.
Or is the general consus that the majority of Halo fans have waited until H3 arrives to upgrade to 360?

According to MS Halo 2 is still being played by a lot of gamers on the Xbox 1; they also noted that half of Xbox 360 owners didn't own an Xbox. So even if the 6M Xbox 360 owners who did have an Xbox also purchased Halo 2 (unlikely as only 33% of Xbox 1 owners purchased the game), there are at a minimum 2M Halo 2 owners around who haven't jumped in. Based on the popularity of Halo 2 over Live I would guess that there is a sizable number of such consumers.

 

[Acert93]

http://videogames.yahoo.com/news-532294

Halo 3 sells over 50k units in the first day in Austrailia.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I will certainly buy Halo 3 once I get an Xbox, but it's not the only reason - there's Bioshock, Mass Effect and COD4 as well, however I'll certainly delay my purchase until the new hardware revision arrives here.

 

[JPT]

According to MS Halo 2 is still being played by a lot of gamers on the Xbox 1; they also noted that half of Xbox 360 owners didn't own an Xbox. So even if the 6M Xbox 360 owners who did have an Xbox also purchased Halo 2 (unlikely as only 33% of Xbox 1 owners purchased the game), there are at a minimum 2M Halo 2 owners around who haven't jumped in. Based on the popularity of Halo 2 over Live I would guess that there is a sizable number of such consumers.

There is just something I don't like, can't really put a finger to it.
But its just doesn't add up in my head, that Halo1+2 fans that most likely are the biggest segment of XboX fans havn't already upgraded to play Gears, R6, GRAW etc which is basically in the same genre.

As wethere I am right or not, well I guess gut feeling ain't something to go by for marketing

 

[Laa-Yosh]

The X360 isn't worth $400 even for a lot of those fans. RRoD has probably scared away a lot of potential customers as well; for example I'll only get a 65nm version, no matter how long it takes and I've heard the same from quite a few other members here.

 

[JPT]

The X360 isn't worth $400 even for a lot of those fans. RRoD has probably scared away a lot of potential customers as well; for example I'll only get a 65nm version, no matter how long it takes and I've heard the same from quite a few other members here.

Well that might be, its so strange to see the purchasing power of different countries, I mean $400 is alot less than what the Premium goes for here in Norway ($5500). Most of my friends that loved Halo got the 360 basically at launch and the rest got it around Gears of War time and out of those 20ish people, only 2 have experienced RRoD.

If we compare that to the amount of people having PS2 and cutting it down to those that can be classified as a gamer ie not casual singstar, buzz etc players.
Then maybe 5 out of 20 has upgraded to PS3 and most are waiting for the first price drop or their killer game.

Anyway bit off topic, but hey

 

[JPT]

It was supposed to be $550 and not $5500

 

[Acert93]

The X360 isn't worth $400 even for a lot of those fans. RRoD has probably scared away a lot of potential customers as well; for example I'll only get a 65nm version, no matter how long it takes and I've heard the same from quite a few other members here.

Yep.

[strike]$400[/strike] $350 is quite a bit of money for a working stiff like myself. I don't own a HDTV (or TV period) so there is another $50 for the VGA cable. Toss in $60 for a single game and another $60 for a controller so I can do the social gaming thing at home and another $70 for Live+Camera... that is $590. Toss in tax and we are looking at a cool $640.

To play 1 game.

Sure, the 360 comes with 2 months of free Live, but at $640 I will need to make my first game last moooonths. So it may not even be my most anticipated game I pick up, but instead something a) with a lot of replay and b) something my friends will be playing non-stop.

If I wasn't so utterly put off by the Wii I could get one for $249 + a game w/ controller for $50. Pick up Metroid Prime 3 and woohoo! Save $300 right there. Alas no online multiplayer or what I want in a console. It is sooo much easier to justify $300 than $640.

I would probably unleash an unholy tyraid if I bought a new console and got a RRoD. I don't curse, but I could probably invent 640 curse words and let them out at the CC rep at the other end!

 

[AlphaWolf]

Well that might be, its so strange to see the purchasing power of different countries, I mean $400 is alot less than what the Premium goes for here in Norway ($5500). Most of my friends that loved Halo got the 360 basically at launch and the rest got it around Gears of War time and out of those 20ish people, only 2 have experienced RRoD.

If we compare that to the amount of people having PS2 and cutting it down to those that can be classified as a gamer ie not casual singstar, buzz etc players.
Then maybe 5 out of 20 has upgraded to PS3 and most are waiting for the first price drop or their killer game.

Anyway bit off topic, but hey

huh? I think you messed up on the currency conversion there. I rather doubt its 14x as much in Norway. Perhaps you meant $550.

Around me anecdotal evidence suggests halo 3 has been moving quite a few systems. A few stores around here are sold out of consoles, others down to a couple halo edition boxes.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

huh? I think you messed up on the currency conversion there. I rather doubt its 14x as much in Norway. Perhaps you meant $550.

Around me anecdotal evidence suggests halo 3 has been moving quite a few systems. A few stores around here are sold out of consoles, others down to a couple halo edition boxes.

At 1941 hours JPT writes '$5500'. And 1942 hours, the very next post, JPT follows up with a correction ti '550'. Some half an hour later you reply to the first post without any consideration for the correction. These leads to only one conclusion...

It would be nice if people carried on reading a thread before hitting the Quote button. For them as well, so they don't spend time typing something that serves no purpose!

 

[AlphaWolf]

At 1941 hours JPT writes '$5500'. And 1942 hours, the very next post, JPT follows up with a correction ti '550'. Some half an hour later you reply to the first post without any consideration for the correction. These leads to only one conclusion...

It would be nice if people carried on reading a thread before hitting the Quote button. For them as well, so they don't spend time typing something that serves no purpose!

actually it just took me a long time to hit post, his follow-up wasn't there when I quoted, but I'm loving the thread commentary, keep up the good work!

 

[JPT]

Well I could sell you one for $5500, would everybody be happy then

 

[JPT]

Just got an email from a distributor here in Norway, PS3 40GB is in stock from today and price is 3019 nok ex vat, inc vat its 3774. And if by using todays NOK <>USD conversion rate from www.xe.com that ends up being 553.86 and 692.37.

And my colleague just placed an order for two, I told him it is not PS2 BC, but he said who cares, I already got a PS2 at home.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

On the grounds the event being polled has been and gone, and there's nothing more to discuss, the thread's getting closed.