I don't really know. It will be interesting. Halo 3 was the game that EVERYONE had to buy with their 360. That's why it's legs have been so amazing. A large majority of new 360 owners buy Halo 3. If everyone who bought it became a fan and will buy the next is yet to be seen. It definately looks a lot more quality then 3 too which is always nice in winning naysayers.

Reach has... reached out... to new people I think and CoD may not do very well this year

Yes, I think it should be able to at least beat Halo 3's sales.

Two cases:

1) People are fed up with Halo - than no
2) People still like Halo - than yes

call of duty franchise was no way near as big it is today.call of duty games were always good and they didn't have that brand name,now it does.

now call of duty belongs to that category which all the people buy to show off that they have played it.

no way,there hasn't been as much hype about it.it will be a natal game defintley as MS wants something to push natal and as much as they disagree it will not be a natal,it will be a natal game.

and the coding required to use it fully will take alot of time,the AI will not be ready and it might get shadowed by it

No.

Two Reasons:

Bigger Competition
3rd Halo Game On Xbox360.

COD didn't have to be as big as it is now, the point is it was already a pretty big franchise that was known by many people. The hype and word of mouth was also huge and mostly positive. COD4 also had more online players than Halo 3 did for a long time. How is that not competition?

I say it sells on par with Halo 3. More sales in the first weeks than Halo 3 because of this bigger install base. But it sells about the same.

Just curious as to why the install base being quadrupled only impacts first-week sales and not overall sales?  That doesn't seem like it makes sense.

Part of the reason Halo sells so well is because it's the game that if you buy it, along with COD games now, that you KNOW you'll always have people to play with online and on your friends list.  I think people underestimate this fatcor in sales.  People who aren't even big shooter fans  buy these games for the social aspect of Live. 

I still think the numbers will be huge if the demo beta generates positive buzz.