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Aura7541 on 07 November 2015
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Barozi said:
Aura7541 said:

The problem is that Halo 5 is facing stiff competition from Black Ops 3 and Battlefront, both of which are multiplayer-focused FPS'es. Abdiel has commented that Halo 5 vanished when Black Ops 3 launched (which isn't long after Halo 5's launch) and Battlefront is coming out on the 17th.

Also, Halo 3 took more than 1.7 million preorders before it officially launched, so the game sold 1.7+ million Day 1. That's more than 1.4 - 1.5 million in 5 days. After Halo 4 launched, Microsoft's PR commented on how Halo 4 surpassed Halo 3. It's not unreasonable to assume that Halo 4 also sold a similar amount on Day 1.

First I always said that Halo 3 is unmatched by any other Halo, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. Then I never said that Halo 4 didn't sell more than Halo 5 during the same time. I said that they are much closer in sales than what you tried to make it look like by doing that NPD to WW comparison with completely different time frames etc..

Yet again you make a simple numbers comparison but leave out all the details around it. 1.4m-1.5m doesn't include digital sales and apparently no bundles either, while the MS source does (while keeping in mind that digital sales for all previous Halos were 0 at launch).
Furthermore who says that MS didn't already include HW revenue in the Halo 4 press statement when comparing its revenue to Halo 3? Or how many special editions of Halo 4 were sold compared to Halo 3 and 5 since that changes revenue a lot but not unit sales. There's no way to know.

What I'm saying is, comparing pre-orders of game x to physical sales of game y to revenue of game z is not a good way to try to make a point.

Halo 5 is selling less than the previous few, sure but that's kinda normal for the first entry in a new generation. Doesn't mean it didn't do well, doesn't mean that Halo 6 can't do more, doesn't mean that Halo 5 can't go on and have legs since the console has easily 5+ years left.

However, you don't really have evidence that suggests the sales are much closer than I try to make. Even if we include digital sales on top of the 1.4 - 1.5 million figure, those sales span over 5 days, not in 1 day. In addition, Halo 5 faced stiff competition from Black Ops 3 not long after. As a result, the selling rate is lower. As for your second paragraph, why are you bringing revenue into this when it has not been brought up once in the discussion? Please stick to the topic at hand unless you actually know the exact breakdown of the $400 million MS earned that allows us to figure out the amount of digital sales.

In response to your closing paragraph, do you have a citation that is not VGC numbers that proves that? "Kinda normal" does not cut it. Looking at, let's say, Assassin's Creed, Black Flag sold 10 million copies while Unity sold less than 10 million (the numbers came from Ubisoft, not VGC). That's not really consistent with your conjecture, is it?

You're making it sound like I'm saying Halo 5 didn't do well. I didn't. I merely said that it likely sold less than its predecessors by a not-so-insignificant margin. Nothing more, nothing less.