Ballmer's Halo comments at CES

[aragod]

Slimebeast said:

Staude said:

Slimebeast said:

Staude said:
Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, GTA, Call of Duty -

All names of bigger franchises than halo.


I think that hes going a little in over his head here. There are more too.

Starcraft and Diablo are not bigger than Halo.

oh yes they are. Is halo 1 still sold as new in well practically all stores that deal with video games ? and even many stores that don't ? for a 4th of its original retail price ? Diablo 1 and 2 are both. So is diablo 2s expansion. Sure halo games may have more total sales than diablo but diablo 2 alone has sold more than 10 million copies.

 

Same thing with starcraft.

That's ridiculous. 10 million sales where 3/4th are from the bargain bins, and you call that bigger than Halo?

I don't think you realize how big Halo is.

The problem with Diablo and Starcraft is that they aren't supported enough by Blizzard the way the Warcraft franchise is. You should also account for those who have pirated either of these games, I don't know a single person that consider themselves PC gamers that didn't played Diablo 2.

Warcraft is probably the strongest gaming franchise of all times, no game generated such income as World of Warcraft, and the only games that are able to generate interest from investors beside Warcraft 3 are Starcraft and Counter Strike.

Also the funny thing is that unlike Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft and Counter Strike, Halo is forced heavily by marketing. Except for World of Warcraft commercials, noone of these games had any kind of marketing push, Counter Strike even beeing fanmade mod for Half Life (It's the most played FPS game of all times, by many considered the greatest).