Well, I have been mostly a lurker on these forums so be gentle with my first thread and lay off the flames please as I believe there is some good level-headed discussion to be had here:

Now that the Nintendo Wii has passed the Xbox 360 in worldwide sales I believe it is a good time to speculate (again! I suppose although a cursory search did not reveal any recent similar thread) on whether Halo 3 will help the 360 to regain that lead.

Personally I do not believe that it will and here is my reason why:

The Wii outsells the 360 by more than 100k a week (closer to 150k) and there are 5 weeks before the release of Halo 3 so the Wii should be around .5 or .75 millions ahead of the 360 by then.

Halo 2 helped the Xbox sell about 200k more in november 2004 than in november 2003 but did not help december numbers.

Now two factors can change this number, one positively, the other negatively.

Positively because less people have 360's now than people had Xbox's in 2004 so a lot more people may buy a 360 for Halo3 than they bought an Xbox for Halo (I think that the majority of Halo fans have a 360 already but not all of them).

Negatively because the 360* is still more expensive than the Xbox at launch, let alone in 2004 so the casual/Jock part of the Halo demographic is less likely to buy a more expensive console just for Halo 3 (and the hardcore players are more likely to already have a 360 for other hardcore games).

So do I believe that Halo 3 will sell well? Yes

Do I believe it will move a lot of consoles? Yes

Do I believe 360 sales combined with PS3 sales for that week will be more than Wii sales for that week? Maybe (depends on what PS3 game comes out that week or the week before)

Do I believe 360 sales by themselves will be more than Wii for that week? Unlikely

Do I believe it will give the 360 the worldwide lead back? No

Now the biggest (IMO) flaw is that I assume that sales of the 360 and Wii will be constant in the coming 5 weeks despite the good games coming. Unfortunately I do not have the time to peruse the games release list for the next few weeks and estimate how much of an impact they will have on 360 sales (I expect minimal Wii impact worldwide due to shortage although regional differences will probably vary) so feel free to criticise (constructively I hope) and we will see if I have any crow to eat for that thread (I got a little bit of crow to eat for predicting the Wii passing 360 next week).

* corrected typo: 460->360 (thanks thanny)

Nope, what ever sales boost 360 gets from halo 3, The wii will get a bigger boost from Mario Galaxy, Smash bros and Metroid.

No way it will, it's a system seller, not a miracle.

As you said, the wii will be far ahead at the time halo shows up

the only criticism i have is that at the negatively u said 460 not 360 :P

interesting points... halo couldnt lift the 360 about the wii. if it was coming out this or next week then yeah but its a little to far away. also, nintendo are probably gonna be shipping more then the usual number of wii units for the release of MP3 so i believe that will give the wii a bigger lead. on the other hand, bioshock next week....

i reckon 360 + ps3 sales will beat the wii on halo's week

"what ever sales boost 360 gets from halo 3, The wii will get a bigger boost from Mario Galaxy, Smash bros and Metroid."

I doubt it for two reasons:

Metroid as the first two prime games didn't sell as well as Halo (although I am hoping the control scheme changes things in the same way that Halo's control scheme set the console world on fire).

Two of those games release after the Halo 3 release week so they won't affect whether Halo 3 gives the lead back to the 360. Also I should precise that I believe that if the 360 gets the lead back this year either from Halo 3 or christmas it would only be temporary with the Wii retaking it for good in 2008 (if it concedes it at all that is).

Also, I did not take MP3 in account because I did not have time take in account the 360 games coming out in the coming 5 weeks so it would not be fair to take MP3 in account.

Another thing I wonder about is with Bioshock's excellent reviews and ensuing hype, will it move hardware a lot? Will it move hardware enough to give the 360 the lead back next week? It seems unlikely as it would have to more than double worldwide 360 sales which is a tall order for a new franchise. For comparison, the 360 did similar to the Xbox christmas periods (500k in november, 1-1.1 millions in december) with the hyper hyped Gears of War so I do not believe that Bioshock can do it.

I agree it's not going to happen. The sales boost from Halo 3 is probably going to be pretty huge, but not big or long enough considering how well the Wii is selling.

Probably going to pull ahead of the PS3 for the rest of the year though.

Realistically I don't think it can, for all the factors you mentioned. Wii will already be further ahead and even the best case amount of hardware halo 3 could push probably wouldn't be enough.

I'm interested to see what kinda of numbers the 360 can do that week anyhow, as well as this week with bioshock.

Wii weekly sales - 220 to 250k
360 weekly sales - sub 100k (sorry, i'll admit i am being lazy by not checking up more precise figures)

during the Halo Launch, imagine that triples (very huge jump, about 250 - 270k) in the first week, then retreats to double (around 170-190), then stays at double for a few more weeks and etc, the wii is (this is debatable) still going to be selling at that 200+ range, and given its lead by that stage, even the first week of Halo sales wouldn't make that big of an impact

no chance.
the Wii sells near 250k per week, the Halo release in US should put US 360 sales above US Wii sales. but there will be a much smaller boost in Europe (360 sales might move up to manage half of Wii) and none in Japan.

so even if Halo came out next week i doubt 360 would get the lead again, it could catch up (depends on US increase, which could be an increase of 150-200k....putting 360 at 50k for the week over the Wii....at maximum) but it will not take the lead again.

Might happen... but I don't really think so, no. Of course Halo 3 is going to sell bigger, but MP3 is a good title for Nintendo to stand their ground.