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USAToday - Analysts Estimate Halo 2 could sell 4 mill this year

From an article in the Life section of USToday. The article quotes Anthony Gikas & P.J McNealy although the Halo 2 quoted isn't attributed to any specific person. There is a front Life page article for GTA:SA that restates the 5 million this year / 15 million Lifetime estimate for GTA:SA.

So, 4 million is now a "respected" opinion. Wow.
 

Mrbob

Member
Halo 2 vs GTA:SA

It's on.

Amazing how a console with about 2/5 of the userbase in NA can have a game keep up with the hottest PS2 title. Thus is the power of Halo 2. :D
 

mashoutposse

Ante Up
4 million is more than the original sold in its entire time on the shelf...
thinking.gif
 

Mrbob

Member
mashoutposse said:
4 million is more than the original sold in its entire lifetime on the shelf...
thinking.gif

Well, remember Halo sold a couple hundred K a month in November/December last year.

Methinks there may be plenty of XboxEN sold this Xmas with Halo and Halo 2 under the Christmas tree.
 

McFly

Member
Mrbob said:
Amazing how a console with about 2/5 of the userbase in NA can have a game keep up with the hottest PS2 title. Thus is the power of Halo 2. :D

No wonder with much less other big games to take sales away.

Fredi
 

Mrbob

Member
McFly said:
No wonder with much less other big games to take sales away.

Fredi

Ahh now we are going to use this excuse. It's basically the last leg to stand on and I had been wondering how long before this card was pulled out. That's ok though. I knew it was going to be used eventually.
 

mashoutposse

Ante Up
Mrbob said:
Well, remember Halo sold a couple hundred K a month in November/December last year.

Methinks there may be plenty of XboxEN sold this Xmas with Halo and Halo 2 under the Christmas tree.

The estimate still assumes that ~90% of the people who purchased Halo will buy the sequel within 60 days of launch (and that the game will sell on a near 1:1 ratio with new hardware). Not realistic, IMO.

My guess is 2.5 million by the end of the year.
 

McFly

Member
I'm sure GTA:SA would sell in the tens of millions without MGS3,GT4,Killzone,R&C:UYA and all the other big games that will get the money of PS2 owners till the end of the year.

Fredi
 

Mrbob

Member
mashoutposse said:
The estimate still assumes that ~90% of the people who purchased Halo will buy the sequel within 60 days of launch (and that the game will sell on a near 1:1 ratio with new hardware). Not realistic, IMO.

My guess is 2.5 million by the end of the year.


True. Although I think it'll hit over 3 million. We'll see though.

I'm sure GTA:SA would sell in the tens of millions without MGS3,GT4,Killzone,R&C:UYA and all the other big games that will get the money of PS2 owners till the end of the year.

Well, replace GTA:SA with Halo 2 and some other Xbox games you have the same thing. Heck, put Halo 2 up against those other PS2 titles it would be the same. GTA:SA and Halo 2 are basically the two games I would call untouchable this Xmas. No other game is going to impact their sales but they are going to impact sales of other games.
 

DarienA

The black man everyone at Activision can agree on
4mil before Dec 31st? Checks release date... 11/08? Hmmm I don't think so... definitely over 2 mil... maybe even 3... but 4? I don't see that.
 

PhatSaqs

Banned
McFly said:
I'm sure GTA:SA would sell in the tens of millions without MGS3,GT4,Killzone,R&C:UYA and all the other big games that will get the money of PS2 owners till the end of the year.

Fredi
At the same time, you could argue that those games arent going to sell close to what they could with a juggernaut such as GTA taking sales away.
 
mashoutposse said:
The estimate still assumes that ~90% of the people who purchased Halo will buy the sequel within 60 days of launch (and that the game will sell on a near 1:1 ratio with new hardware). Not realistic, IMO.

My guess is 2.5 million by the end of the year.

There should be at least 2 million new Xbox's sold in Nov, Dec = 2 million
+
90% of 3.5 million = 3.15 million
=
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That would give 5.15 million, not 4

Still, I think that leaves out the 66% of people that currently own an Xbox that do not own Halo. Some of them will buy it. Of course, it begs the question, why didn't they buy it in the first place.
 
SyNapSe said:
4 million is crazy. In fact anything above 3 million would be unbelievable sales (talking just US here)

At this point, I think 3 million is probably a moderately high, but completely understandable number. Less than 2 is impossible. In fact, it's probably impossible for less than 2 in November. And December sales usually hold on quite well.
 

COCKLES

being watched
Pity the poor foo who trys to sell a game not called Halo 2, GTA:SA or HL2 in Sept.

>cough< Tron 2.0 >Cough<
 

Flatbread

Member
do they mean worldwide or US? with europe it might hit 4 million worldwide, its gotta be pretty close to 5 million worldwide, its 3.6 million US
 

Mrbob

Member
I'm interested to see how the new Goldeneye on Xbox does in November since it is releasing a week later than Halo 2.
 

Wulfer

Member
3 or 3.5 million (U.S.) is probably the number M$ is going for. I'll bet Halo 2 presales will reach 2 million before Nov. 9th. (What a headline that would be.)
 

Mrbob

Member
From what I have seen around town, Friday is the cut off day for pre orders and Halo 2. See a bunch of signs saying that Friday is the last day you can preorder the game. Don't know if this is the same elsewhere...!
 
Mrbob said:
I'm interested to see how the new Goldeneye on Xbox does in November since it is releasing a week later than Halo 2.

I made a thread gauging how bad people think it will bomb. It also comes out the same day as Metroid Prime, MGS3, & Half-Life 2. Most people thought the name would carry it pretty far and that, at the end of the day, it would put up respectable numbers. I'm not so sure.
 

Joe

Member
where i work we hardly ever get people to reserve games. so little that gta:sa only got 8 pre-orders. 8! and halo2 got 27. :)
 

Sysgen

Member
COCKLES said:
Pity the poor foo who trys to sell a game not called Halo 2, GTA:SA or HL2 in Sept.

>cough< Tron 2.0 >Cough<


With all the extra store traffic, Tron may be trying to ride the coat tails of Halo2. Go in for Halo 2. Hell, look Tron is also out. **adds to shopping cart**. I'm picking up both.
 

Kon Tiki

Banned
Mrbob said:
Ahh now we are going to use this excuse. It's basically the last leg to stand on and I had been wondering how long before this card was pulled out. That's ok though. I knew it was going to be used eventually.
eh? What other mainstream hits does Xbox have this xmas what would take away from Halo2 sales? DOAU maybe. A serious answer would be useful, have not payed attn to the xbox xmas schedule.
 
Society said:
eh? What other mainstream hits does Xbox have this xmas what would take away from Halo2 sales? DOAU maybe.

I don't know that any other game will even hit a million this year (other than Fable, NFL2k5 & Madden 2005, which are well on their way)

What would people consider to be the top 5?
 

Joe

Member
this christmas its halo2, mechassault2, and kotor2 for xbox.

halo2 is the definitive title on xbox. the only game that could eat its sales is san andreas but that wont be on xbox for quite some time.
 

LukeSmith

Member
McFly said:
I'm sure GTA:SA would sell in the tens of millions without MGS3,GT4,Killzone,R&C:UYA and all the other big games that will get the money of PS2 owners till the end of the year.

Fredi

Tens of millions, huh?
Wrong.
 

LukeSmith

Member
sonycowboy said:
I don't know that any other game will even hit a million this year (other than Fable, NFL2k5 & Madden 2005, which are well on their way)

What would people consider to be the top 5?

Saleswise?
Halo 2
Madden 2005 (but I don't know how much it will move for the holidays)
Knights 2 (but I really don't think it will sell that well at all, given its December date)
Ghost Recon 2 (I don't think this will sell that well)

I think Xbox has really made a solid effort to clear out some space for Halo 2 this season and as a result I really can't even think of much else that I'll buy for the system aside from Halo 2 (which technically, I'll get through work free, but I'll still pick up my pre-order for the limited).

For microsoft the most important statistics to watch for their success this holiday season are probably Halo 2 sales// Halo 2's install % given their user base // how much the Xbox user base will expand this holiday season // and how much revenue they will generate from new Xbox Live account sales.

GTA should sell more during the holiday just on account of its user base, but given how much higher the PS2s user base is than Microsoft's, I do expect the % of Xbox owners who own Halo 2 to be higher than the percentage of PS2 owners who own GTA: SA.
 

Alcibiades

Member
2 milllion have been pre-purchased/reserved already, that's good for the first few days...

add a good 300,000-400,000 for regular 1st week sales + 500,000-600,000 in the next 2 Nov. weeks (remember that Thanksgiving Friday is here...

Then, add another million for December/Christmas rush (including 3 of the 4 busiest shopping days of the year), and 4 million doesn't seem so crazy...
 

Joe

Member
i think we're all (myself included) underestimating halo2's system selling capability. this game could be even bigger for microsoft than we could have thought.
 
If it gets to 01/01/20005 and Halo 2 has more than half the sales of GTA:SA i'll post a picture of my erect penis.

I'm that certain.

GTA:SA x2 >>> Halo2
 
a system seller?


anyone that is getting halo 2 more than likely already has halo 1 and an xbox.

I cant see a soccer mom going hmm this is halo 2 and its uses of new lighting system and bump mapping will spur me into buying an xbox. As opposed to the previously demoing of halo1 which while good lacked the newer tech to jusitfy my purchase.

:)
 

Flatbread

Member
gollumsluvslave said:
If it gets to 01/01/20005 and Halo 2 has more than half the sales of GTA:SA i'll post a picture of my erect penis.

I'm that certain.

GTA:SA x2 >>> Halo2

got alot of pics hanging around do ya?
 

snapty00

Banned
It will be interesting to see November Xbox hardware sales. If sales don't rise a good deal (over November 2003), we can assume that Halo doesn't have much influence outside the Xbox sphere. On the other hand, if we see a big increase, it might indicate that Halo as a franchise is just getting started.
 
efralope said:
2 milllion have been pre-purchased/reserved already, that's good for the first few days...

add a good 300,000-400,000 for regular 1st week sales + 500,000-600,000 in the next 2 Nov. weeks (remember that Thanksgiving Friday is here...

Then, add another million for December/Christmas rush (including 3 of the 4 busiest shopping days of the year), and 4 million doesn't seem so crazy...

Wait a sec....efralope optimistic on an Xbox title's sales? *pinches self*
 

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Joe said:
where i work we hardly ever get people to reserve games. so little that gta:sa only got 8 pre-orders. 8! and halo2 got 27. :)

Most of the people I see buy San Andreas don't look like the type that pre-order games...
 
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