Or is the downward trend only an artefact of increaed digital sales?

Each successive Halo title on Xbox 360 has sold less than its predecessor, yet with a larger install base, and in the face of successive record breaking CoD releases (indicating that the FPS genre is pretty healthy).

Halo 5 is being talked about as one of the key games that will propel Xb one ahead of PS4 (in North America at least), but I wonder if it has that sort of pulling power anymore. It's guaranteed to sell several million, no doubt. but I wonder if Halo is a less relevant franchise than it was in the days of Xbox and the early days of Xbox 360.

Digital is more popular now(prob at 9m with digital), less time on the market, and competed with PS4 and XBO in its 2nd holiday(Which is big for Halo  games as they do have legs). It is very plausible that it will still pass Halo Reach as it is selling faster than Halo Reach but now that XBO and PS4 is out it may stop that from happening.

There is a larger picture than the one youre displaying above.  No it is not as popular as Call of Duty and wont be as popular as Halo 3 but it is also still in very high demand and will continue to sell a lot with Halo 5

I guess they need to increase the game quality for europe because those sales suck really hard in that region.

its gonna sell a lot anyways, it sold a lot on the first xbox as well with a limited install base, I say 7 million sales is already guaranteed.

Nah, but as long as it can continue doing 8m+ it's still a mammoth franchise.

Yeah, I don't think those kinds of numbers are worth worrying about as long as they're maintained.

I'm sure the first next-gen Halo would sell crazy numbers, though.

Halo 4 is tracking above Reach. Reach is just 2 years longer on the market...The new gen will kill the legs but that's the only reason why Halo 4 could maybe stay behind Halo: Reach which I wouldn't be too sure about.

http://www.vgchartz.com/tools/game_comparison.php?reg=Global&ending=Cumulative&game[]=Halo+3+%28X360%29+[6964]&game[]=Halo+3%3A+ODST+%28X360%29+[29077]&game[]=Halo%3A+Reach+%28X360%29+[35024]&game[]=Halo+4+%28X360%29+[51758]

I'd like to see a Halo game get back over the 10 million mark, but 8-9 million seems reasonable to expect from Halo 5. Although I would like to see the online community stay online longer than they did with Halo 4.

Will probably sell more then Halo 4 if Xbox One is popular when it releases. They might have $400 Xbox Ones by then.

Here's a more fair comparison...

Halo 3
2007 6,835,323 N/A 6,835,323
2008 2,046,996 -70.1% 8,882,319

Halo Reach
2010 7,059,031 N/A 7,059,031
2011 1,561,466 -77.9% 8,620,497

Halo 4
2012 7,197,135 N/A 7,197,135
2013 1,490,851 -79.3% 8,687,986 and growing.


binary solo said "Each successive Halo title on Xbox 360 has sold less than its predecessor, yet with a larger install base"

Userbase has no direct correlation with sales. Mario Galaxy 2 sold less than the original, Killzone 3 sold less than 2, Forza 4 sold less than 3, Black Ops 2 sold less than MW3, etc.