Halo 5: Guardians sells more than $400 million (games and hardware)

[binary solo]

starcraft said:

I cannot see anyone doing possible number break downs, so I will have a (very amateur) go!

At $60 a copy, on revenue of $400 million, this game would have sold 6,666,666 copies first week.

Now as Ethomaz kindly pointed out, if someone were to purchase a Halo 5 Xbox One Bundle (the only product significantly expensive and wide-spread enough to dramatically skew the numbers), that would count as the equivelant of a large number of game sales (Ethomaz said 10, the correct number is 8.3, but lets roll with 10 because some people might have gotten the game slightly cheaper in Europe, and it makes the math's easier).

Now. If we assume a whole QUARTER of the revenue game from the game/console special edition, it would mean that Microsoft sold:

- 5 MILLION copies of Halo 5 standalone
- 200 THOUSAND Halo 5 consoles bundled with the game (which wouldn't include any non-Halo Xbox's sold this week - typically around 100 thousand per week at this time).

Now, remembering that at those levels the discrepency in unit cost between 8.3 and 10 game copies per Halo 5 console bundle likely comfortable covers the additional revenue from more expensive Halo 5 limited editions, we get:

- 5.2 million copies of Halo 5 sold first week.
- Well over 200 thousands Xbox's sold this week.
- An attachment ratio of approximately 1/3.

Now, there are a whole range of potential variations in these numbers.

But the only way to argue that Microsoft sold significantly less games than this, would be to argue that the Xbox One itself had a ridiculously, stupidly, insanely excellent week. Put another way, you would need to argue that the Xbox One had an enormous week, driven by masses of sales of Halo 5 console bundles...while at the same time suggesting that somehow means Halo 5 flopped.

If that wasn't amusing enough, I am particularly enjoying people suggesting that this revenue is largely made up of additional controller sales, for a game they have spent weeks lambasting for not having split screen.

Game did amazingly people, cool your jets.

If MS is adding the 45 million req packs into their $400 million revenue then that takes a large chunk of the $400 million out of the equation for game sales as well.

Also, according to VGC Halo 3 took 4 weeks to reach 5 million, and 5 weeks to reach 5.2 million. Reach also took 4 week, Halo 4 also took 4 week, but of course Halo 4 had digital as well. But still, there is no way any of the previous Halos got anwhere close to 5 million in the first week with or without digital sales added to VGC.

I guarantee if Halo 5 sold 5 million copies in the first week MS would be putting that up in the biggest brightest lights in every gaming publication in the world. They have not, ergo Halo 5 did not come anywhere close to 5 million week 1. If the game sold 4 million week 1 that would also be a record and it would be being hailed as a massive achievement. Therefore I say using revenue as a basis for guessing number of games sold is highly unreliable.

More than likely, because unit sales have not been mentioned at all, the game sold under 3.5 million week 1. While that is far from being disappointing, it is also not a number that can inspire and amaze, because the previous main entries for Halo all did better. Disappointing for a Halo title would be under 2.5 million. Sales between 2.5 and 3.5 million appears to be the ballpark. 

Considering total hours played in that first full week, 3 million is a pretty reasonable guess I think. ~7hrs average total play time per game sold, factoring in shortness of campaign and many people not playing the whole campaign, or even any campaign, seems like a reasonable guess. If anything ~7hrs total play time per game sold feels a bit low. But I think kowen may reflect a significant number of Halo fans, i.e. the fanbase is ageing as a large number have been with the fanchise since the original game, and as we get older we have less time we can devote to gaming. I would be surprised to see VGC publish more than 2.5 million FW. The difference being that there are 2 sales days not accounted in VGC's week 1 data compared to MS's "first week" PR, and there are digital sales VGC doesn't count.