I seem to recall whenever a publisher released numbers, we said they were sales and rarely argued it was shipped. I am not saying they can't track it, but rarely have digital sales been tracked. I have very rarely heard of it and most of it comes from Steam games. I can't really think of any game for the Xbox One whose sales numbers have been announced that has had the digital sales included in them. Plus, digital games are always sold through, so there's no reason to include them with shipped numbers. You cannot ship digital stuff without selling it and as far as I know, they aren't that confused to merge the two together. 

This is not excluding digital sales to lower the number. The implication is the opposite. This is either the tip of the iceberg, or just the visible side of the moon. 

5m is exactly what I thought the game was sitting on months ago if we included digital sales. With Halo 5 coming to PC (Rumours) and the amazing MP support that 343 keep delivering on. Halo 5 will no doubt hit 7m+ in its life time. Halo 6 is a long way off still so there really isn't a reason Halo 5 will stop selling anytime soon. PC + X1 versions could exceed up to 10m as a good possibility, I wouldn’t put that past a good Halo game.

Just wanted to add. People seem to be taking these type of things way to seriously. There’s a lot of down playing in these type of threads. Regardless if you want to justify sales to a T. 5m are great numbers for any game. I know there are many in here wanting Halo to be unsuccessfully, I’m sure they were wishing that back in 2000. Halo is a great franchise and 5m and possibly end with a good 7m on X1 alone is quite an achievement since many gamers are boycotting the X1, due to hate and unknown reasons. I will say "Well done Halo 5 for putting the haters to rest, Keep up the good work. 5m are great numbers and I’ll be looking forward to playing Halo 6 in 1 to 2 years’ time."

Halo doesnt seem like a dead franchise now, does it.

The PC version will not sell much if they lock it behind Windows 10 Store.

I seem to recall whenever a publisher released numbers, we said they were sales and rarely argued it was shipped. I am not saying they can't track it, but rarely have digital sales been tracked. I have very rarely heard of it and most of it comes from Steam games. I can't really think of any game for the Xbox One whose sales numbers have been announced that has had the digital sales included in them. Plus, digital games are always sold through, so there's no reason to include them with shipped numbers. You cannot ship digital stuff without selling it and as far as I know, they aren't that confused to merge the two together. 

It will hit more than 7 million life time.

I seem to recall whenever a publisher released numbers, we said they were sales and rarely argued it was shipped. I am not saying they can't track it, but rarely have digital sales been tracked. I have very rarely heard of it and most of it comes from Steam games. I can't really think of any game for the Xbox One whose sales numbers have been announced that has had the digital sales included in them. Plus, digital games are always sold through, so there's no reason to include them with shipped numbers. You cannot ship digital stuff without selling it and as far as I know, they aren't that confused to merge the two together. 

This is not excluding digital sales to lower the number. The implication is the opposite. This is either the tip of the iceberg, or just the visible side of the moon. 

That's not how it works, though. Developers always report digital plus shipped numbers for the very simple reason that that's how they make money. Whether or not retailers sell the copies that they ordered, doesn't matter. It only matters in terms of requesting more copies, thus making more money.

A copy shipped is a copy sold for the company that publishes the game.

That's not how it works, though. Developers always report digital plus shipped numbers for the very simple reason that that's how they make money. Whether or not retailers sell the copies that they ordered, doesn't matter. It only matters in terms of requesting more copies, thus making more money.

A copy shipped is a copy sold for the company that publishes the game.

If 343i manage to pull out Warzone Firefight flawlessly the sales will definitely pick up again.

Again, publishers don't report 'shipped' sales, so they have no reason to exclude digital. They just report sales. We are the ones that use the 'shipped/sold' terms. Publishers reports are always shipped+digital and are referred to on their end simply as sales.