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

[starcraft]

binary solo said:

starcraft said:

Certainly, REQ packs could skew the numbers from absolutely enormous to just close to enormous. Bare in mind it will certainly include the large number of free req packs that have been given out. Note they very specifically said 'acquired,' not sold. To give you an idea, if you watched Nightfall, you'll get 3-5 REQ packs immediately just for that. Posted on the Halo forums? There is another pack. Played the Beta a bit? There is another 3-5 packs. Pre-order and/or buy a special edition? Another few packs available. People can very feasibly have 10 packs and not have spent a cent for them.

As has been detailed multiple times in this thread, Microsoft's intial PR around previous (very successful) Halo launches has focused very intently on revenue for investors, not exact sales for gamers.

If the game has 'only' sold 3 million first week (which would be massive), console sales must be HUGE.

There is simply no way Halo 5 did 5 million week 1. And I agree that console sales won't be vastly different than past halo launches (200K range). So we can take roughly $100 million out of the equation for console hardware sales. We don't know how many req packs have been sold rather than earned, but I accept that it's likel most of them have been earned rather than sold. That leaves us with hidden revenue streams MS has not explicitly mentioned which are probably captured in the "hardware" category. Hardware is not just consoles, because hardware can include peripherals (controllers) and Halo themed merchandise.

Surely, logically you can't really think Halo 5 has sold 5 million in the first week. The only way that is a logically tennable number is if all or most of the other main Halo titles sold more than 5 million in their first week, and VGC is thus significantly undertracking the opening week of all those past Halo titles. That is certainly possible, given we know VGC software accuracy is pretty low in many cases. But if VGC tracking of past halo games is good to within 10 or 15% then 5 million for Halo 5 is absoltely out of the question.

For most games 3 million is massive. For Halo and what it means for the Xbox brand 3 million is decent.

No, I do not really think that Halo 5 sold 5 million copies in its first week. I do think that there is an enormous amount of revenue that cannot be accounted for by simply saying 'but rec packs and controllers.' Especially as the game is not split screen, and the only significant hardware outside of the console is controllers.

Halo 3 sold 5 million copies in a month. It is the best point of comparison, as it launched with the closest install base. By that metric, no matter what the split of revenue between game copies, controllers, DLC and Xbox One Halo 5 bundles, Halo 5 is an enormous success.

What my example was intended to do, was nudge people to either recognise the very obvious success of the game, or demonstrate how they break down that $400 million in such a way as to indicate the game sold poorly. They'll struggle to do the latter I suspect, as the game's success is self evident at this point.