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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Halo 5: Guardians sells more than $400 million (games and hardware)

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thismeintiel on 04 November 2015
Arkaign said:
I would hope MS sold well more than 200k X1's for Halo week. It's literally the flagship series for the brand, and this is the first mainline entry for the console.

We as currently set have no idea on the splits, or what is included. MS could be super creative and include non-H5 bundled X1s sold in this timeframe due to the (admittedly VERY probable) possibility that someone buying a $349 X1 during Halo week is probably buying it to play Halo 5. $349 X1 + $59 Halo 5 is the cheapest way to do it anyway, not everyone wants to pay $500 for LE.

As for the rest : REQ Pack sales, Controllers(?), Headsets(?), New/Renewed XBLG subs, etc, could all play a part in the quoted $400M number, or they might not.

5M+ 1st week sales are exceedingly unlikely given the X1 install base and accredited insider info from vetted people such as Abdiel (who on Neogaf/Bish certified, and a long history of great retailer info) that indicates that Halo 5 sold very well, but not particularly amazingly. Add in Amazon rankings, and it's all pretty muddy.

NPD will tell us a lot, but at the same time, may not really be enough either. Halo 5 will EASILY be the #1 software debut of the year so far, even without digital included.

The smart money is that H5 is a success on it's own terms (2015 console/FPS/platform realities considered), but will do less sales than Halo 3 or Halo 4. Not a disastrous falloff, but as we all know, there are ups and downs to everything.

It would have been interesting to know the Halo 3 first week revenue totals if the same items were included (hardware, misc merchandise, etc).

It definitely didn't do 5.2M+ as starcraft suggests/calculated.  There would be no reason to include all other numbers in the PR, as 5.2M would make it the best selling Halo according to VGC.  Something very unlikely given not only the PR spin, but also the hours played and lack of number of MP players given, which previous Halo PR has included.

Given the XBO's state outside of the US and UK, it would also mean that US and UK would have to do some heavy lifting to make up for lack of interest/sales in those countries.  We already know UK didn't do any of that lifting, so are we saying that Halo 5 crushed it in the US?  While I'm sure it did great in the US, I highly doubt it crushed it like it would have to.



 

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hudsoniscool on 04 November 2015
enrageorange said:
riecsou said:
Halo 3 hours and "number of players"
More than 2.7 million gamers have played “Halo 3” on Xbox LIVE in the first week, representing nearly one-third of the 7 million Xbox LIVE members worldwide. Within the first day of its launch, “Halo 3” players worldwide racked up more than 3.6 million hours of online gameplay, which increased more than elevenfold to 40 million hours by the end of the first week,

Halo 4 hours and "number of players"
Halo 4” also shattered the record for the largest number of players in the history of the “Halo” franchise, with over 4 million players in the first five days. Users spent a total of 31.4 million hours playing “Halo 4,”

Halo 5 hours and "number of players"
Fans have logged more than 21 million hours of total gameplay, including 12 million hours in campaign mode alone.
For Halo 5 we get the hours but no "number of players". And if we compare those hours...

Halo 3 sold 3.8mil week 1 and had 40million hours of play. = 10:30 hours of playtime per sale
Halo 4 sold 3.65 week 1 and had  31.4 million hours of play = 8:40 hours of playtime per sale

Here are Halo 5's sales assuming it had Halo 3 like playtime, Halo 4 like playtime, and playtime continued to decline.

Halo 5 has 21 million hours of playtime at 10:30 hours per sale => 2mil sales week 1.
Halo 5 has 21 million hours of playtime at 8:40 hours per sale=>2.4mil sales week 1.
Halo 5 has 21 million hours of playtime at 7:40 hours per sale => 2.8mil sales week 1.

Halo 5 probably had between 2 and 2.8million sales. I would say those sales are pretty mediocre but the decline is less than 50% from Halo 4.
Compared to Call of Duty which declined from 3.6mil (Ghosts 360) to 1.7mil (Advance Warfare XB1), much bigger decline.

People who expected Halo 3 like numbers were expecting too much. Halo: Reach and Halo 4 only managed their sales due to the massive install bases. Halo 3 sold so well on a tiny install base because it was the most played multiplayer game till MW2 came out. Nowadays battlefield, call of duty, destiny, halo, and heck even GTA are all fighting for the multiplayer fps userbase on the xbox one.

The only thing usable for software sales is the attach ratio bit. By my reckoning the highest attach ratio at launch for a first party game on X11 is forza 5. 315k on 1.1 million consoles. That's a 28.5 attach ration. A 28.5% attach ratio on 14.6 million would put halo 5 at 4.15 million copies. This is all going off vg charts but this seams a little high to me. My guess was 3 million including digital week 1.

 

BOOM



Halo MCC will sell 5+ million copies(including digital)

halo 5 will sell 10 million copies(including digital)

x1 will pass ps4 in USA, and UK.

darkenergy on 04 November 2015

Halo 5 made alot of money, but a few in here(or who were in here) are trying to downplay almost any success MS gets(and thus the moderations). Let's see what NPD tells us.



Proud to be a Californian.

SvennoJ on 04 November 2015
enrageorange said:
riecsou said:
Halo 3 hours and "number of players"
More than 2.7 million gamers have played “Halo 3” on Xbox LIVE in the first week, representing nearly one-third of the 7 million Xbox LIVE members worldwide. Within the first day of its launch, “Halo 3” players worldwide racked up more than 3.6 million hours of online gameplay, which increased more than elevenfold to 40 million hours by the end of the first week,

Halo 4 hours and "number of players"
Halo 4” also shattered the record for the largest number of players in the history of the “Halo” franchise, with over 4 million players in the first five days. Users spent a total of 31.4 million hours playing “Halo 4,”

Halo 5 hours and "number of players"
Fans have logged more than 21 million hours of total gameplay, including 12 million hours in campaign mode alone.
For Halo 5 we get the hours but no "number of players". And if we compare those hours...

Halo 3 sold 3.8mil week 1 and had 40million hours of play. = 10:30 hours of playtime per sale
Halo 4 sold 3.65 week 1 and had  31.4 million hours of play = 8:40 hours of playtime per sale

Here are Halo 5's sales assuming it had Halo 3 like playtime, Halo 4 like playtime, and playtime continued to decline.

Halo 5 has 21 million hours of playtime at 10:30 hours per sale => 2mil sales week 1.
Halo 5 has 21 million hours of playtime at 8:40 hours per sale=>2.4mil sales week 1.
Halo 5 has 21 million hours of playtime at 7:40 hours per sale => 2.8mil sales week 1.

Halo 5 probably had between 2 and 2.8million sales. I would say those sales are pretty mediocre but the decline is less than 50% from Halo 4.
Compared to Call of Duty which declined from 3.6mil (Ghosts 360) to 1.7mil (Advance Warfare XB1), much bigger decline.

People who expected Halo 3 like numbers were expecting too much. Halo: Reach and Halo 4 only managed their sales due to the massive install bases. Halo 3 sold so well on a tiny install base because it was the most played multiplayer game till MW2 came out. Nowadays battlefield, call of duty, destiny, halo, and heck even GTA are all fighting for the multiplayer fps userbase on the xbox one.

That makes sense. The game play time decline wasn't really there though. Halo 4 stats were for 5 days, so 1:30 hours per day per sale for Halo 3, vs 1:40 hours per day per sale for Halo 4.  Of course there are other factors. More people play online today, no more offline co-op and the fan base has grown older and probably has less time to spend with the game on a daily basis. So a higher percentage of copies get played online with likely less hours per copy. Hard to tell.

Yet that older fan base also has more disposable income to spend on the game. Revenue is what matter in the end for MS, although more unit sales are also good to keep a franchise healthy.

Btw, more people played Halo 4 online the first 5 days than it sold copies in the first week? Are those Halo 4 sales numbers accurate?



hudsoniscool on 04 November 2015
binary solo said:
starcraft said:

I cannot see anyone doing possible number break downs, so I will have a (very amateur) go!

At $60 a copy, on revenue of $400 million, this game would have sold 6,666,666 copies first week.

Now as Ethomaz kindly pointed out, if someone were to purchase a Halo 5 Xbox One Bundle (the only product significantly expensive and wide-spread enough to dramatically skew the numbers), that would count as the equivelant of a large number of game sales (Ethomaz said 10, the correct number is 8.3, but lets roll with 10 because some people might have gotten the game slightly cheaper in Europe, and it makes the math's easier).

Now. If we assume a whole QUARTER of the revenue game from the game/console special edition, it would mean that Microsoft sold:

- 5 MILLION copies of Halo 5 standalone
- 200 THOUSAND Halo 5 consoles bundled with the game (which wouldn't include any non-Halo Xbox's sold this week - typically around 100 thousand per week at this time).

Now, remembering that at those levels the discrepency in unit cost between 8.3 and 10 game copies per Halo 5 console bundle likely comfortable covers the additional revenue from more expensive Halo 5 limited editions, we get:

- 5.2 million copies of Halo 5 sold first week.
- Well over 200 thousands Xbox's sold this week.
- An attachment ratio of approximately 1/3.

Now, there are a whole range of potential variations in these numbers.

But the only way to argue that Microsoft sold significantly less games than this, would be to argue that the Xbox One itself had a ridiculously, stupidly, insanely excellent week. Put another way, you would need to argue that the Xbox One had an enormous week, driven by masses of sales of Halo 5 console bundles...while at the same time suggesting that somehow means Halo 5 flopped.

If that wasn't amusing enough, I am particularly enjoying people suggesting that this revenue is largely made up of additional controller sales, for a game they have spent weeks lambasting for not having split screen.

Game did amazingly people, cool your jets.

If MS is adding the 45 million req packs into their $400 million revenue then that takes a large chunk of the $400 million out of the equation for game sales as well.

Also, according to VGC Halo 3 took 4 weeks to reach 5 million, and 5 weeks to reach 5.2 million. Reach also took 4 week, Halo 4 also took 4 week, but of course Halo 4 had digital as well. But still, there is no way any of the previous Halos got anwhere close to 5 million in the first week with or without digital sales added to VGC.

I guarantee if Halo 5 sold 5 million copies in the first week MS would be putting that up in the biggest brightest lights in every gaming publication in the world. They have not, ergo Halo 5 did not come anywhere close to 5 million week 1. If the game sold 4 million week 1 that would also be a record and it would be being hailed as a massive achievement. Therefore I say using revenue as a basis for guessing number of games sold is highly unreliable.

More than likely, because unit sales have not been mentioned at all, the game sold under 3.5 million week 1. While that is far from being disappointing, it is also not a number that can inspire and amaze, because the previous main entries for Halo all did better. Disappointing for a Halo title would be under 2.5 million. Sales between 2.5 and 3.5 million appears to be the ballpark. 

Considering total hours played in that first full week, 3 million is a pretty reasonable guess I think. ~7hrs average total play time per game sold, factoring in shortness of campaign and many people not playing the whole campaign, or even any campaign, seems like a reasonable guess. If anything ~7hrs total play time per game sold feels a bit low. But I think kowen may reflect a significant number of Halo fans, i.e. the fanbase is ageing as a large number have been with the fanchise since the original game, and as we get older we have less time we can devote to gaming. I would be surprised to see VGC publish more than 2.5 million FW. The difference being that there are 2 sales days not accounted in VGC's week 1 data compared to MS's "first week" PR, and there are digital sales VGC doesn't count.


I sure at least 90% of those req packs were earned for free. Between me n my friends we probably got 200 req packs and we didn't spend a dollar. Also they give u req packs when u level up and complete commendations. I probably got 20.



Halo MCC will sell 5+ million copies(including digital)

halo 5 will sell 10 million copies(including digital)

x1 will pass ps4 in USA, and UK.

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starcraft on 04 November 2015
binary solo said:

If MS is adding the 45 million req packs into their $400 million revenue then that takes a large chunk of the $400 million out of the equation for game sales as well.

Also, according to VGC Halo 3 took 4 weeks to reach 5 million, and 5 weeks to reach 5.2 million. Reach also took 4 week, Halo 4 also took 4 week, but of course Halo 4 had digital as well. But still, there is no way any of the previous Halos got anwhere close to 5 million in the first week with or without digital sales added to VGC.

I guarantee if Halo 5 sold 5 million copies in the first week MS would be putting that up in the biggest brightest lights in every gaming publication in the world. They have not, ergo Halo 5 did not come anywhere close to 5 million week 1. If the game sold 4 million week 1 that would also be a record and it would be being hailed as a massive achievement. Therefore I say using revenue as a basis for guessing number of games sold is highly unreliable.

More than likely, because unit sales have not been mentioned at all, the game sold under 3.5 million week 1. While that is far from being disappointing, it is also not a number that can inspire and amaze, because the previous main entries for Halo all did better. Disappointing for a Halo title would be under 2.5 million. Sales between 2.5 and 3.5 million appears to be the ballpark. 

Considering total hours played in that first full week, 3 million is a pretty reasonable guess I think. ~7hrs average total play time per game sold, factoring in shortness of campaign and many people not playing the whole campaign, or even any campaign, seems like a reasonable guess. If anything ~7hrs total play time per game sold feels a bit low. But I think kowen may reflect a significant number of Halo fans, i.e. the fanbase is ageing as a large number have been with the fanchise since the original game, and as we get older we have less time we can devote to gaming. I would be surprised to see VGC publish more than 2.5 million FW. The difference being that there are 2 sales days not accounted in VGC's week 1 data compared to MS's "first week" PR, and there are digital sales VGC doesn't count.

Certainly, REQ packs could skew the numbers from absolutely enormous to just close to enormous. Bare in mind it will certainly include the large number of free req packs that have been given out. Note they very specifically said 'acquired,' not sold. To give you an idea, if you watched Nightfall, you'll get 3-5 REQ packs immediately just for that. Posted on the Halo forums? There is another pack. Played the Beta a bit? There is another 3-5 packs. Pre-order and/or buy a special edition? Another few packs available. People can very feasibly have 10 packs and not have spent a cent for them.

As has been detailed multiple times in this thread, Microsoft's intial PR around previous (very successful) Halo launches has focused very intently on revenue for investors, not exact sales for gamers.

If the game has 'only' sold 3 million first week (which would be massive), console sales must be HUGE.



starcraft - Playing Games = FUN, Talking about Games = SERIOUS

hudsoniscool on 04 November 2015
starcraft said:

I cannot see anyone doing possible number break downs, so I will have a (very amateur) go!

At $60 a copy, on revenue of $400 million, this game would have sold 6,666,666 copies first week.

Now as Ethomaz kindly pointed out, if someone were to purchase a Halo 5 Xbox One Bundle (the only product significantly expensive and wide-spread enough to dramatically skew the numbers), that would count as the equivelant of a large number of game sales (Ethomaz said 10, the correct number is 8.3, but lets roll with 10 because some people might have gotten the game slightly cheaper in Europe, and it makes the math's easier).

Now. If we assume a whole QUARTER of the revenue came from the game/console special edition, it would mean that Microsoft sold:

- 5 MILLION copies of Halo 5 standalone
- 200 THOUSAND Halo 5 consoles bundled with the game (which wouldn't include any non-Halo Xbox's sold this week - typically around 100 thousand per week at this time).

Now, remembering that at those levels the discrepency in unit cost between 8.3 and 10 game copies per Halo 5 console bundle likely comfortable covers the additional revenue from more expensive Halo 5 limited editions, we get:

- 5.2 million copies of Halo 5 sold first week.
- Well over 200 thousands Xbox's sold this week.
- An attachment ratio of approximately 1/3.

Now, there are a whole range of potential variations in these numbers.

But the only way to argue that Microsoft sold significantly less games than this, would be to argue that the Xbox One itself had a ridiculously, stupidly, insanely excellent week. Put another way, you would need to argue that the Xbox One had an enormous week, driven by masses of sales of Halo 5 console bundles...while at the same time suggesting that somehow means Halo 5 flopped.

If that wasn't amusing enough, I am particularly enjoying people suggesting that this revenue is largely made up of additional controller sales, for a game they have spent weeks lambasting for not having split screen.

Game did amazingly people, cool your jets.

u speak the truth there. I've been laughing my but off At certain comments. 



Halo MCC will sell 5+ million copies(including digital)

halo 5 will sell 10 million copies(including digital)

x1 will pass ps4 in USA, and UK.

starcraft on 04 November 2015
thismeintiel said:
Arkaign said:
I would hope MS sold well more than 200k X1's for Halo week. It's literally the flagship series for the brand, and this is the first mainline entry for the console.

We as currently set have no idea on the splits, or what is included. MS could be super creative and include non-H5 bundled X1s sold in this timeframe due to the (admittedly VERY probable) possibility that someone buying a $349 X1 during Halo week is probably buying it to play Halo 5. $349 X1 + $59 Halo 5 is the cheapest way to do it anyway, not everyone wants to pay $500 for LE.

As for the rest : REQ Pack sales, Controllers(?), Headsets(?), New/Renewed XBLG subs, etc, could all play a part in the quoted $400M number, or they might not.

5M+ 1st week sales are exceedingly unlikely given the X1 install base and accredited insider info from vetted people such as Abdiel (who on Neogaf/Bish certified, and a long history of great retailer info) that indicates that Halo 5 sold very well, but not particularly amazingly. Add in Amazon rankings, and it's all pretty muddy.

NPD will tell us a lot, but at the same time, may not really be enough either. Halo 5 will EASILY be the #1 software debut of the year so far, even without digital included.

The smart money is that H5 is a success on it's own terms (2015 console/FPS/platform realities considered), but will do less sales than Halo 3 or Halo 4. Not a disastrous falloff, but as we all know, there are ups and downs to everything.

It would have been interesting to know the Halo 3 first week revenue totals if the same items were included (hardware, misc merchandise, etc).

It definitely didn't do 5.2M+ as starcraft suggests/calculated.  There would be no reason to include all other numbers in the PR, as 5.2M would make it the best selling Halo according to VGC.  Something very unlikely given not only the PR spin, but also the hours played and lack of number of MP players given, which previous Halo PR has included.

Given the XBO's state outside of the US and UK, it would also mean that US and UK would have to do some heavy lifting to make up for lack of interest/sales in those countries.  We already know UK didn't do any of that lifting, so are we saying that Halo 5 crushed it in the US?  While I'm sure it did great in the US, I highly doubt it crushed it like it would have to.

Again, my calculations were based off the notion of very high console sales, with a great deal of potential for fluctuation.

But as you'll see from the various posts throughout this thread, MS has previously focused heavily on revenue figures, even for games we ultimately know sold very well first week. 

Additionally, the 'anglo' nations have always been the mainstay of Halo sales.



starcraft - Playing Games = FUN, Talking about Games = SERIOUS

Arkaign on 04 November 2015
darkenergy said:
Halo 5 made alot of money, but a few in here(or who were in here) are trying to downplay almost any success MS gets(and thus the moderations). Let's see what NPD tells us.

NPD will make things a lot better, but still won't tell us clearly (without more detailed PR or major MS leaks) the total number of sales, just ranking.

Worst case, we will just see (1)- Halo 5, #1 software for the week. Which is entirely predictable, what else could there be?

PS4 vs X1 console sales wise, it looks to be fairly close with a slight to moderate probability that PS4 takes it (call it 60/40, PS4 won easily on Amazon/BB/etc in terms of non-preorder sales IN October, but preorders have yet to be accounted for until NPD).

But will we know if Halo 5 broke 2M retail in the US? Not without some decent leaks. If I had to guess, retail US sales would be between 1.75M-2.25M first week, with potentially 25% digital over that. Who knows, we'll have to wait and see. We can REALLY hope that we get some leaks come NPD, but don't be too disappointed if all we get is that Halo 5 was the #1 software for October, and PS4 was the #1 console for October. Better numbers may not come at all, or take much longer to arrive (such as Halo 5 sold X,XXX,XXX in holidays 2015).



binary solo on 04 November 2015
hudsoniscool said:
binary solo said:

If MS is adding the 45 million req packs into their $400 million revenue then that takes a large chunk of the $400 million out of the equation for game sales as well.

Also, according to VGC Halo 3 took 4 weeks to reach 5 million, and 5 weeks to reach 5.2 million. Reach also took 4 week, Halo 4 also took 4 week, but of course Halo 4 had digital as well. But still, there is no way any of the previous Halos got anwhere close to 5 million in the first week with or without digital sales added to VGC.

I guarantee if Halo 5 sold 5 million copies in the first week MS would be putting that up in the biggest brightest lights in every gaming publication in the world. They have not, ergo Halo 5 did not come anywhere close to 5 million week 1. If the game sold 4 million week 1 that would also be a record and it would be being hailed as a massive achievement. Therefore I say using revenue as a basis for guessing number of games sold is highly unreliable.

More than likely, because unit sales have not been mentioned at all, the game sold under 3.5 million week 1. While that is far from being disappointing, it is also not a number that can inspire and amaze, because the previous main entries for Halo all did better. Disappointing for a Halo title would be under 2.5 million. Sales between 2.5 and 3.5 million appears to be the ballpark. 

Considering total hours played in that first full week, 3 million is a pretty reasonable guess I think. ~7hrs average total play time per game sold, factoring in shortness of campaign and many people not playing the whole campaign, or even any campaign, seems like a reasonable guess. If anything ~7hrs total play time per game sold feels a bit low. But I think kowen may reflect a significant number of Halo fans, i.e. the fanbase is ageing as a large number have been with the fanchise since the original game, and as we get older we have less time we can devote to gaming. I would be surprised to see VGC publish more than 2.5 million FW. The difference being that there are 2 sales days not accounted in VGC's week 1 data compared to MS's "first week" PR, and there are digital sales VGC doesn't count.


I sure at least 90% of those req packs were earned for free. Between me n my friends we probably got 200 req packs and we didn't spend a dollar. Also they give u req packs when u level up and complete commendations. I probably got 20.

Interesting. So revenue-wise Req packs may not be significant. But what can we guess as the average number of req packs per person who has played Halo 5? If that is 20 (e.g. you represent the average player). Then that puts Halo 5 at ~2.25 million people who have played Halo 5, which puts actual Halo 5 sales below 2.25 million. If the number is 10 then that puts the numebr of people who played Halo 5 at 4.5 million, and sales are something below 4.5 million. If the number is 5, then that puts number of players at 9 million and Halo 5 sales something below 9 million. If between you and your buddies you collected 200 req packs, how many req packs per person is that? Do you consider yourself and your buddies roughly average Halo players or do you think you are a little more obsessed with playing Halo than your average Halo player?

Again, using some critical thinking with the MS PR, it is highly unlikely that Halo 5 broke unit sales records, because MS would have said as much. So the average number of req packs per game sold is definitely going to be more than 10, and probably more than 15, and possibly upto 20, and potentially more than 20.



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