mumu said:
not a chance in hell. the downside of the spectacular day 1 sales (and the whole marketing behind it) is that most people already got theirs now. i expect sales to drop dramatically over the news few weeks.
I disagree.
Unlike San Andreas, people are actually buying XBOXen to play Halo 2. Hell, when I picked mine up, I saw gamers actually trading in San Andreas to pay off their Halo 2 preorders!
The reasons I feel that Halo 2 will eventually outsell GTA:SA are the following:
1) The bloom is off the rose with the GTA series. GTA III was phenomenal and people really wanted to see what R* would do with the series in another setting and devoured GTA:VC. Now, I'm afraid the game only appeals to fans of the series now and will have trouble pulling in people who previously had no interest in the series(I call this the 'Nintendo Effect'). So GTA:SA's audience is only of previous GTA/PS2 owners.
2) Halo 2's multiplayer options puts the game in a whole other category of fun. People are jamming XBOXLive playing this game and from what I'm hearing(I haven't been online yet) it's the best XBL experience yet. And oh yeah, people who buy the game get 2 months of XBL for free. Nice.
3) The anticipation for Halo 2 easily dwarves the anticipation for GTA:SA. Like I said, pretty much only people who already had PS2's and played the previous versios were waiting for GTA. People who never even intended to buy an XBOX are buying one just to play Halo 2. People are actually talking non-stop about this game everywhere. The buzz around it is unlike any game I've seen, EVER. And again, the XBL aspect makes this game an gaming community "event". GTA:SA lacks that.
4) There's no controversy surronding this game. There isn't a widespread objection amongst parents to their kids playing this game.
5) I have to give a fifth reason? I'm not sayin Halo 2 will outsell GTA:SA. What I'm saying is that GTA:SA will sell LESS than GTA:VC and that Halo 2 will sell around the same amount and possibly more. I wouldn't be surprised if Halo 2 sold 4 million before New Years and another 3 million + next year. It'll be pretty much like the first Halo, live in the XBOX top 10 from here on out only selling well over 100,000 every month.