Well, day 1 Halo 3 sales SHOULD be lower than day 1 Halo 2 sales. Halo 2 had a larger install base and a lower price threshold. Even MS themselves never said they were aiming to beat Halo 2's day 1 unit sales, just revenue. IIRC, Halo 2 did about 2.5M first day, for $125M in revenue. MS actually wanted to beat Spiderman 3's $150M first day opening, to have the biggest 1 day total in entertainment history.
So if this 1M online transfers to 2M purchases, they would need the average price to be $75 to beat $150M, which could be possible with a minimum price of $60, and the highest SKU well above $100.
At worst, they should beat that Halo 2 number.
I expect there'll be an MS press release tomorrow or Thursday.
"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.
