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Arkaign on 10 May 2016
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Yep, most people I think expected Halo 5 to do at least somewhere in the range of a mainline Halo in sales (looking back at 2, 3, and 4). It fell pretty flat, even below expectations that it wouldn't hit H4 numbers.

I think there are many reasons.

1- The X1 hasn't hit the 'X' factor that the 360 had, where in the US/UK it was just the default 'cool' console, and overwhelming favorite for FPS games.

2- 343i seemed to disappoint quite a few longtime Halo fans with Halo 4 and MCC. Even newcomers to the Xbox one who might have played MCC first may have gotten a bad impression from the series as their first welcome.

3- Halo isn't an annualized series, so it can be hard to maintain hype if there is another juggernaut in the same game-type space. In this case, CoD. These social-oriented online-focused FPS games seem to attract similar types, and they form groups of friends who are little hive-minds in terms of what they want to play and when there's nothing else available, then CoD can have a big impact.

When Halo 1 and 2 were new, there really wasn't ANYTHING else in the console world that came close to the Halo experience. CoD didn't really start it's metoric rise until COD4/MW1, which came out a bit AFTER Halo 3. It was what, 5 years until Halo 4 released? Between H3/H4, you saw MW1, MW2, Blops, Blops 2, MW3. All huge sellers, and it built a brand. Then H4 released, and because the 360 was a juggernaut, they were able to media blitz and get a pretty successful launch out of it, but the playerbase quickly evaporated as people went right back to CoD. With H5, I think a fair number of people had defected to CoD permanently, and the core fanbase was just diminished.

4- Confusing and ineffective marketing/bundling. This is kind of self explanatory, but H5 certainly didn't succeed in getting widespread excitement built up about it. In fact, the modern gaming press is something you definitely don't want to feed any nuggets of negativity about, because they will click-bait the crap out of things beyond proportion.

On the flip side we have the ludicrously successful global phenom PS4, launching a hot title with good marketing, glowing critical reception, in a time of the year where there is little competition. The levels achieved by UC3 should very handily be surpassed. This is only further aided by there really being no serious competition for the type of game that it is. TR comes closest, but it's got a totally different vibe to it, and doesn't catch that nu-Indy Jones action/humor/mega setpiece craziness that UC has.

Gran Turismo might outsell UC4
TLOU2 might outsell UC4
GTA6 WILL outsell UC4

beyond that? This is easily the top selling exclusive of the generation for Sony, and unless something amazing happens, more than any X1 exclusive either. I leave Nintendo out of this because we honestly have no idea.