I usually stay out of these threads because I don't really have enough context and there usually isn't enough information to give me a real sense of the industry though they are fun to read.
This time though I am disappointed in those Halo numbers because they do seem quite low. Not because I am determined that it must be a juggernaut for all time, but because it is a good game that had a well received early beta that provided feedback that actually influenced development choices, prioritized 60fps, prioritized dedicated servers (I realize not perfectly), had staff that was communicative throughout the dev cycle and continues to be post-release and seems to be putting in a lot of effort to sustain the game going forward.
I don't want to 'concern-post' here, but those are things I like to see and it appears they did not equate to sales. I hope the lesson is not taken that these things are not important. There is no reason to think that other than these sales numbers, but I don't know how that feeds into those kinds of business decisions. There are obviously other factors that provide the context and they've been discussed in this thread but did they really override everything else? I'd like to think there is more to the story, but I don't know that there is.
On one hand there there is the thought that everyone who wanted Halo 5 already bought a console when MCC launched. Were there enough people soured by MCC that they bought the console back then, but did not buy Halo 5? Seems like that group would have also played the beta which was generally well received. Are there people waiting to see how it does after a few weeks or months (a lot of people liked Halo 4 initially and then quickly turned)? Is the end of October too close to deal season or are there so many good games coming that people are having to wait to pick which one they really want? I know there is a lot of speculation and most of it against Halo, but those numbers seem really low, even within the context of just the negative stuff.
TR is another one that is a bit worrisome if it is really starting that low. I know for me this gen I'm waiting on deals for most SP games (hoping for a TLOU deal this season), not because I need them, but rather I have a surplus of good games to play so I see no need to pay full price just to build a backlog though I don't know if I am unique in this regard or if there is a similar market to how I purchase games. Again this is because it looks like it will be a good game and builds on the elements that I really enjoyed from the reboot (though we'll see if that pans out now that people are getting their hands on it).