yay! fanboys fight!!

Are you asking me if I mean H3 will sell 5-6m at the end of the year? If so, yes, I am projecting anywhere from 5-7m units by EOY. It just depends on how well the X360 moves during Christmas.

I want to give you a quick comparison: Gears of War.


Gears of War has had absolutely fantastic legs (5.7x US multiplier, 500k o/w). Now, what games have been better than it, or very comparible in that genre? We've had Rainbow Six Vegas, Call of Duty 3, Crackdown (its TPS to a degree), Lost Planet, GRAW 2, and GOTY Bioshock all do very well, and are all games.

Any of those given games *should* of stolen GOW's weekly sales thunder. RSV is still charting above it. Despite that, Gears is still always in the X360 monthly top 10s worldwide - just check PAL numbers, Gears is still there.

My point is: This year, no game, no matter how good, has stolen Gear's thunder. Why? It's known as THE third person shooter, and no FPS or TPS ever really hurt it's sales. It's still going to wind up with well over 5 million units worldwide (currently well above 4.3m, and still has enough left in the US to sell another 600k copies here).

Now, with Gears setting such a precedent for TPS games, despite it dealing with GRAW, RSV and GRAW2 among others, it's still chugging along. Why would Halo 3 falter against UT, Orange Box, and others?

Also, why am I getting so much flak from users about predicting a mere 40% more sales for Microsoft's biggest IP? I'm saddened that some are liking my numbers to John Lucas's who's trying to convince everyone that the Wii will manage 100-200% more than anyone else's numbers.

Also, Halo 2's LTD numbers from VGC in Yearly Sales:

2004: 4.727,000 Units (launched Nov 1st)
2005: 743,000 Units
2006: 659,000 Units
2007: 361,000 Units (as of last VGC update).

Now, you tell me: If a game like Halo 2 manages a 20% year-to-year drop after the system stops selling, doesn't that mean that *maybe*, just *maybe* the fact the X360 will have longer support + more systems sold *might* mean Halo 3 will outdo Halo 2 numbers, and by a fairly decent margin?

@stickball
Sure Halo 3 may, just may, outdo Halo 2. Not too many people are disputing that point. It's your fairly decent jump from simply outselling Halo 2 to saying it will double Halo 2's already impressive sales that is the point of contention. 

Let's take a closer look at your Halo 2 example and see what it means for Halo 3. 74% of Halo 2 games were sold in it's first calender year, while presumably Halo 3 will do better long term for the reasons you say (also it's launching 6 or so weeks earlier in the year) so it only does 50% of its sales in year 1. That would mean Halo 3 needs to sell 7.25-8.25 million copies this year. Next year Halo 3 would have to sell around 3.4 million to keep on a similar pace as Halo 2's year 2+ sales.  That's on the order of 30-40k a week in the US in it's second year and requires dominating Christmas 08 against fierce competition.  The only way to account for lower sales this year would be to lower the percentage of sales that come from year 1.  That would just increase the sales required in subsequent years from possible if all the stars align to sell me some of what you and John Lucas are smoking.

Lastly, since when is 16.5 million only 40% above 8.3 million? Seems like it's awfully close to 100% which may just be why people are comparing your prediction to John Lucas'. I also have to again point out a percantage related error, 40% is not a "mere" jump from of 8.3 million, that's a pretty significant leap for a video game (one that is 20% below your lowest expectation anyhow). 40% of a dollar is small, 40% of $8.3 million is usually not.

You may believe Halo 3 will pull it off but why is it such a surprise that not many agree? It's nothing personal, you made some good points, other people made some good counter-points, and in time we'll know how it turns out (I'm purposely ignoring the name-callers, flamers, and fanboys here, I find it's better to anyhow).

Looks like mrstickball has just come down with a case of the JohnLucas-itis.

Hahahaha! Now THAT'S how you make a prediction, Mr. SB.

John Lucas 

My 40% was saying that it was 40% above the median prediction line for Halo 3, not versus Halo 2.

I'm not saying that I'm suprised that everyone disagrees, I just don't see how it garners so much crazy negativity versus......Maybe a 30m+ prediction for SMG, or such.

I would typically agree that Halo 3 *should* wind up with 50% of it's sales in it's first year. However, I think that with the strength of the X360's sales (versus Xbox's, post Halo 2), might lead to much better legs versus Halo 2. Again, Halo 2 had very little time (1 year) to sell before the Xbox 360 launched, and most knew that the Xbox 360 was launching soon, and might not of got in, in favor of the X360.

So because of that, I believe theres enough of an argument to say Halo 3 will have good legs - look at Gears. It sold around 2m it's first 2 months in the US, and is still selling really, really well.

 I think you might be referring to my little SMG prediction.  And if that is the case I would say that my prediction acknowledges the idea that its a long shot and an outside shot as far as long shots go at that =P

If that wasn't a reference to me than disregard this post =P

Nope, wasn't thinking of your post...I was just saying my 15m-ish catagory would be in the same realm as those kinds of predictions: high, but every do-able.

I don't think Halo 3 will hit 15 million simply because the Halo series isn't and won't be the only big multi player game on the 360. Gears of War 2 will come out in a couple of years, another GRAW will come out, probably some more rainbow six and Battlefield games, in short I see a lot more choices for multi player FPS fans and while Halo 3 will certainly be the big favorite I think the abundance of choices will limit its total sales.