How Halo killed the 360

[mike_intellivision]

I want to take a second to address the topic -- rather than the article.

Both do beg the same question -- What does Microsoft do after Halo 3?

Also, how much more sales are there out there for this game?

Before anyone jumps me ... there is reason to ask this.

The first-day attach US rate for Halo 3 was about 35.8%.

This was calculated as follows: The $170M first-day sales by 65 to generate the number of units sold (approximately 2.615 million). (And I have checked and it appears that the $170M was the US only).

The number of Xbox 360 units listed as sold through in North America (used as a proxy for US sales) Sept. 16 on VGChartz was increased with another week and a half of sales. The weekly sales figure was estimated to be 17 percent above the prior week -- the same growth experienced between Sept. 9 and Sept. 16. .The result was another 155K or so units to the 7.15 million to bring total sales to 7.302 million.

Why is this important? The US attach rate for the original Halo was 31% on the original Xbox. The US attach rate for Halo 2 was 41%.

An attach rate for Halo 3 the same as Halo 2 would mean another 438K in sales, bringing the total to roughly 3.1 million. Plus another two copies or so of the game for every five consoles sold.

Of course, this will probably change as Microsoft sells some 360s. (But how many is anyone's guess. Gartner analyst Van Baker said 500K to 1M units more than otherwise would be sold ... but from his previous analysis, he appears to be biased against one one of the non-360 consoles, so it is unknown how accurate this estimate might be).

Nevertheless, it is telling how many people already have the game.