Its currently a trend to release "preorder" numbers which are in fact retailler orders. Not sure if that is the case here, or if the number is just bunk. I assume it has no relation to actual consumer preorders, because the odds of 60% of all Halo 2 buyers (assuming these are American numbers, 50% otherwise) preordering at the same chain of stores 4 months before release are nonexistant. The game will obviously still be bigger than Gears and one of the biggest games of the year, probably #2 behind Pokemon. But presumably most Halo players are "casual" gamers, and they may jump to "the next big thing" if they're hearing even a little disappointment around Halo 3. The actual people complaining are probably more "hardcore" gamers who will probably buy the game anyways--the problem is the people they influence.

Didn't the PS3 also have a lot of hype around reserved numbers and first week sales, even though it's selling like duck shit sandwiches right now!

No good having a huge number of preordes if in the following weeks sales numbers plummet by 90%, there will always be people that buy any old crap due to hype.

Sony was the one who announced the reserse numbers though, not the places actually reserving them.

You can't compare the PS3 to H3, the PS3 preorders were 75% people trying to hawk them on ebay.

1. Halo 2 went up against GTA:SA, the biggest selling console game in near 15 years, and still pulled away with stealing November's hardware sales from Sony. 2. Your always going to have a game like Halo go up against impressive other games. Look at Shrek 3 vs. Spiderman 3 vs. POTC 3 - each game will get their share. 3. If it "killed the hype" why, at EBgames.com, 3 of the top 5 most-purchased games Halo 3, Halo 3 CE and Halo 3 Legendary Pack? Why is it still #1 at gamestats.com's hype meter (99.8 vs. closest game, SSBB at 99.6)? MS has about 5 other huge games to release, and I think a November release date for H3 would of killed the whole GTAIV day-and-date thingy going on which is HUGE.

November release date??

 nah, microsoft and bungie announced September 25th as the release date for America and september 26th for Europe....  That's before GTA and still gives them a large amount of sales for the holidays.

He didn't say H3's release date was in November...

After seeing the Beta is has become a really lackluster game in my opinion. And has been firmly marked off my buying list. I think Halo 1 & 2 roped in alot of new gamers, (many very young gamers) and for them Halo is the only game they really have an interest in. If they released Halo 4 as a 2D sidescrolling shooter, it would probably still sell well.

Keep in mind that it's a beta people. Those who have beta tested many games on the PC know that many changes will come before it's released. Graphics get tuned up, game play smooths out, and the game improves drastically.