There were also bundles with ODST, and bundles with Wars as well as console boundle.

Do you hold the same logic for the Gran Turismo bundles for the Sony PS1 and PS2?

By your logic, games such as Halo and Gran Turismo crawl to 10 million sells mainly because they are bundled. Do you stand by this?

I got no idea. In GT1 times i didn't care about console games ;)

But what i remember is swarm of various halo packs sold at funny prices few months after Wars released

Halo 3 was back in the UK top 40 this week. Seems to pop up there fairly frequently from time to time IIRC. And again, was in the Amazon top 100 last I looked. Just think that in 2013 when Halo 4 is coming out, Reach will still be poping up in the charts.

And I forgot, it's also on games on demand, so has sold many that aren't counted at retail.

Wow you actually quoted my original post? lol

There could be a Halo 4 for the 360, but not much is known about that. It's not being developed by Bungie, so sales may just plumet (probably not), and for all we know it could be a launch title for a successor console. I simply saide Halo: Reach is likely to be the best selling HD console exclusive, it's not garenteed by any means.

Lol there is a guy, who's uncle works for 343, and says. LOL! really accurate information. It should be taken with a grain of salt..

I with you there and I have a very good theory for that too:

When Halo 3 came out, not only there was less competition in the FPS genre let alone the whole 360 library, the main thing back then was THE CALL OF DUTY MONSTER HADN'T EVOLVED.

Fast forward 3 years later and 3 soon to be 4 Call of Duty games enter the battefield and the market is a lot more competitve, the audience much more dispersed.

Back in late 2007 when the Xbox was starting to lower its price and building up install base, many of the new owners bought Halo 3. However you have to consider many of those owners didn't stay very attached to the franchise. Of course, millions of them still are and those hardcore fans were the first to jump into it 3 years ago, but today there are just many more Call of Duty players and we have think many of those probably bought Halo and then moved to other things. For many of them Halo 3 was just a good game to accompany their 360 purchase.

This holiday season and Q1 2011 will have too many strong franchises competiting for gamers' money, that really wasn't the case for Holiday 2007 and beginning of 2008. But if you must take something out of this analysis is what I said above about Halo 3 launching in the middle of an early expansion period for the X360, when many gamers bought the console with the first iteration of its Number 1 franchise this generation. That and the COD phenomenon was just starting.

First of all, great comment. Been meaning to reply to this, but I've been away.

It's validity is debatable, then again most things are.

What your saying is that Halo will pull what Resistance did, it sold well in it's first game because of a small game library, but now that the library has expanded, it won't do as well. However, explain the Pre-orders, they are 1.5x Halo 3, and over 2 times as great as ODST's, and the game still has 2 weeks to build pre-orders. Halo: Reach will be the first game to ever break 2 million pre-orders. Bigger library aside, Halo is a crowning title, it's going to be one of the best rated 360 exclusives, it's going to have one of the best FPS campaigns, it's going to have one of the best online multiplayer modes, and best of all, it will be the best co-op (Unless Gears 3 surprises).

Your other point is that Modern Warfaret monopolized the market, but thats not entirely true. Modern Warfare trailers and previews flooded the internet before Halo 3, and it's debut trailer has been one of the top 10 viewed trailers on Gametrailers for years. Also When Modern Warfare came out 2 months after Halo 3, that should have cut Halo sales, but it didn't. Even when websites were saying Call of Duty 4 was getting more matches played then Halo 3, Halo was still keeping pace with sales.

Even now, Halo 3 is the second most played X-Box game online, comming second only to Modern Warfare 2, a game that was released last year. If Call of Duty truely monopolized the market, why is Halo 3, after being out for 3 years, charting more games online then World at War, Modern Warfare 1, Lost Planet 2, Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Forza Motorsport 3,, Halo 3: ODST? Halo 3 is a 3 year old game, and it's being played more then every other game except for the recent Modern Warfare title.

As for competition, I'm sick of hearing people say that Halo 3 had less competition. Thats completely false. It has Modern Warfare, Mass Effect, The Orange Box, Bioshock, Metroid Prime 3, and Uncharted to compete with. Six other shooters (Mass Effect being half shooter), all of them released between August and November of 2007. What competition does Halo Reach have? Black Ops, Medal of Honor and Metroid: Other M? Metroid: Other M isn't even a shooter, it's predominantly 2D. Yes there is also Vanquish, and Quantum Theory, but those games are not garenteed 9/10 or greater ratings, and most likely will not sell too well.

So Halo 3 had 6 games to compete with, Halo Reach only has 2.

You also mentioned that new gamers were buying lots of 360's then with Halo 3, because of an "expansion period." Well guess what, even more people buy 360's now, 2010 is looking to be 360's peak year in sales. The 360 is selling exactly 33.3% better in 2010 then it did in 2007, and with the recently released Slim 360, isn't the 360 market going through an even bigger "expansion period?"

Also please explain why Halo: Reach pre-orders are higher then Modern Warfare 2 pre-orders were, despite Halo: Reach being released after the slowest month of the year in terms of game sales/pre-orders (August)?

May I ask you how reliable is this pre-order data? What is the source of this pre-order data and which retailers does it comprehend?

Even if a 2 million pre-order estimate becomes true, sales could be very heavy front-loaded.

Everything you say about Halo Reach becoming "best" at something, is just opinion and nothing else, I won't comment on any of that, and it's irrelevant to this discussion you feel that way. You even underlined "will", like it's some sort of certainty. I guess I'm talking with a very passionate fan, so I'm not sure if I'll be losing my time continuing this conversation, since it's pretty much determined by now Halo Reach can't do no wrong in your eyes.

I never mentioned the word "monopolized", or implied such thing. And if I didn't it's because I know everything you said in that paragraph, and I reiterate: Modern Warfare Fever was just developing, so of course it didn't cut into Halo 3 sales that much.

The competition you list is nothing of the sort. Head to Head competition is a game that shares same genre and gameplay, in this case the MULTIPLAYER component being a major factor. All those games you mentioned Bioshock, ME, etc. first of all they weren't nearly half as popular as COD4 or Halo3. Second: they weren't online multiplayer shooters. I shouldn't have to mention a third, but some of them like ME and Bioshock were new franchises.

You must consider this : Just as Halo has built a fanbase since the original Xbox, other game series have also built very a very impressive fanbase in the last 3 years. A fanbase as large as Halo's shouldn't be expected to grow out of proportion, and it has already got two iterations this gen. Indirect strong competition will have even stronger fanbase support this time around against Halo Reach (compared to 3). Games like Fallout New Vegas, AC: Brotherhood, and Fable 3 will surely catch their share this holiday season.

Halo 3 gave a large and prolonged boost to 360 hardware sales, and a big part of that was because it was the first current-gen Halo. Halo Reach will indeed boost sales but not in the same way #3 did. You claim the 360 is having/will have its bigger year yet, I wouldn't know for sure, but still that's irrelevant. Why irrelevant? 'cause that doesn't mean the majority of those new owners will be a locked-Reach sale. Back in 2007, there were people jumping on a new 360 just for the Halo 3 fever. This time those fans will "double dip", there won't be as many 360s sold because of Halo Reach and you should see it in the attach ratio. The audience is just a lot more segregated this time, it's a simple fact.

I am not, by any means saying Halo Reach won't have monstrous sales and rave reviews, it should and very likely will. I think I'm being fair. after explaining my objective analysis, in not expecting too much of Halo Reach like beating its predecesor in LTD sales.