I can't quite seem to get the data I'm looking for on Vgchartz -- either because I don't know how or the granularity isn't there.  Regardless, I'm wondering how many consoles (approximately) did Halo 2 move?  The release date was 11/7/04 and from the looks of the chart there was an enormous spike, then a taper off, then another spike (holiday?).  It could be mostly all holiday.  Has anyone researched this at all and can provide a more concise answer?

Note:  If you are an anti-360 fanboy here to give me your opinion, please save it for someone who cares.  I'm looking for something grounded in reason.  This thread, just so you know, contains Anti-Troll (TM) stealth technology.

Here are the hardware numbers your looking for during that time period. These are all American.

Week before Halo 2 (No games of note)

XB -  118,000

PS2 - 122,000

GC - 56,000

Week of Launch

XB - 190,000      +61%    (Halo 2 sells 2.5 Mill) 

PS2 - 185,000    +51%    (No Games of note)

GC - 77,000       +37%    (No Games of note)

Week after Launch

XB - 256,000      +35%    (Halo 2 sells 732,000)

PS2 - 245,000    +32%    (MGS 3 sells 221,000)

GC - 110,000      +42%   (MP2 sells 139,000)

2 Weeks after Launch

XB - 263,000       +2%    (Halo 2 sells 377,000)

PS2 - 262,000     +7%    (MGS 3 sells 119,000)

GC - 147,000       +33%  (MP2 sells 66,000)

As you can see here, Xbox got a good jump of 61% with Halo 2 but PS2 was able to get a good jump of 51% and the GameCube also had a good jump of 37% and these were without any games. It can be assumed that the Holiday season must be selling these systems more than the recent games. The following weeks see relatively large releases for both competing systems but Xbox continues to outsell them. I think that Halo 2 really helped Xbox with selling but not on a huge scale. My assumption would be that the increase in sales would be similar to GameCubes were it not for Halo 2. So an increase of 40% the first week, then more along the lines of PS2 or less for the following weeks so maybe 30% then possibly a decrease the next week.

Because of the state of the info we're dealing with, being several years old and highly incomplete (games missing) it's difficult to tell. It's also hard to distiguish due to the holiday bump all systems receive.

On a side note I find Halo 2's legs to be incredible. The game just kept selling.

Actually, it is nearly impossible to know how many consoles "Halo 2" moved because it was released in November 2004 which was a month that saw the release of Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2, Half-Life 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, World of Warcraft, Metal Gear Solid 3 and the Nintendo DS...

Basically, so many good games were released that every system sold fairly well and it was the holiday season aswell ...

Also the Xbox introduced a bundle in October 31 2004 to further make it difficult how many consoles were sold just due to the Bundle alone.

http://www.xbox365.com/news.cgi?id=EpAZlZFykZExPKxbDu3627

^ Clearly you didn't read the summary. It moved hardware in conjunction with a plethora of other games. May or may not have been Halo 2 that moved so many extra boxes.

I think Halo 2 provided a big time bump to the original Xbox, and assume Halo 3 will do the same for the 360.

I can't seem to find it but when was the PS3 announced that may have had a (Dreamcast vs. PS2) affect also that affected people's choice in buying a XBox... seems like it would have been a good move...

Xbox: "Here's Halo 2"
PS: "Yeah, that's nice but check out the PS3 that will be coming"

The holidays certainly contributed, but looking at the numbers, I'd have to think that at least some of the increase was Halo 2 related. I certainly understand that it is pure conjecture. Throw a number out there... 150K units? 200K units? Unfortunately, as stated, the holidays plus other games, plus the age of the data skew things a bit.

At Kber -- I'm speaking in terms of the period around Halo 2.  Not just first week or so.  

Halo 3's situation is different than Halo 2's in two key ways:

- Halo 2 was the second Halo released on the Xbox 1 compared to Halo 3 being the first for the 360. So potential Halo series buyers likely bought an Xbox for the original game.

- Halo 2 was released later in the Xbox 1's lifecycle after it had already experienced several price drops and had a large installed base in which to buy the game. Halo 3 on the other hand is coming out when the 360's installed base is still relatively small.

So since those two differences are major ones, Halo 3 could generate more hardware sales than Halo 2.  Of course we're going to have to wait until sometime in October/November before we know how much of an impact Halo 3 had.

Halo 3 will push some units, for those that held off until Halo 3 released we will find out those numbers. And considering some Xbox users out there that want the Halo Xbox 360 its going to definently increase demand for the 360 we will see though.

I say Halo 3 sales 500k to 1 million in a week!