We can all agree that Bioshock's US numbers have been stellar.  It has sold three-quarters of a million copies in the USA alone, not including this weeks numbers.  Though actual sales are unavailable, we know that it topped many PAL region software charts, in some cases for up to three and four straight weeks.

With the arrival of the next Halo, the 360's flagship shooter (read: flagship shooter for consoles themselves), one would expect Bioshock's numbers to fall greatly.  However many have claimed that the sale of new consoles will bring many shooter fans to pick up both games, resulting in a significant increase in sales for Bioshock.

Personally i believe each argument will offset the other and sales will see a 'regular' drop as opposed to an exponential drop. Your thoughts?

regular drop

I really dont know, i have quite a few friends going "yea im getting a 360, picking up halo 3 AND bioshock, i heard it was great"

i think halo could boost, yet also hurt it, because of it taking all the glory for a bit

Lol. I reckon if it hurts it, it will hurt it a lot. But honestly i think if someone likes shooters they will get bioshock eventually. The problem is the Halo hype will last a month at least, which could make ppl forget Bioshock.

I vote for the Latter. A lot of people will be buying Halo 3 and an Xbox in the next few weeks, and I have a feeling that Bioshock will be the second purchase for a great many of them. It was a great move of timing. Allowing Bioshock to build it's own buzz before Halo. Because if Bioshock came out second, then yes, yes it would suffer.

I think Halo will end up being good for all games on the system -- or at least ones that aren't released the same week. Lots of people will buy a 360 along with their Halo, and with that purchase, they'll be looking back at the library of games that have already come out seeing what interests them. I imagine you'll see a minor but noticable software jump in nearly all the quality games out right now. Particularly Madden, Bioshock, Gears, etc. which will appeal to the new Halo demographic.

I realize that Amazon isn't a good place to judge sales but if we go by it we can assume that Bioshock is still being sold in decent numbers since it's still ahead of Heavenly Sword and Metroid Prime 3 and we know that those games are selling pretty well.

I think in the short-run it could harm Bioshock, through completely dominating sales for a week or two, but in the long run it would be beneficial as it should be every new 360 owners second choice. As they say a rising tide lifts all boats.

Help.........Alot.

Bioshock is now the X360 game TO GET. Even beyond Gears of War as a #2nd purchase game.

I would argue that Bioshock caters to a similar crowd as Halo, so I think it'll benefit quite a bit. Every game, imo, will benefit, because the price drop had a positive effect on all games.

However, in the beginning of the Halo3 launch, I don't know if Bioshock will be the top-game to get an increase. Simply because Gears, RSV, Dead Rising, Saints Row, and Oblivion are all Platinum or GOTY editions...Which I would think with all these people putting down $400 for new X360s, might want to go the cheaper route and get a cheaper game.

This trend has been evidenced strongly even in Japan for the X360 - when the X360 dropped Trusty Bell, every game from Gears of War to Viva Pinata and Blue Dragon had major 30% increases....When Halo3 manages to move 250,000 systems over normal sales in a matter of 2-3 weeks (or more systems), these people WILL buy ALOT of games for Christmas.


So during Christmas, we have the following 'big games' for people to buy:

Halo3 - Most will already own, but should sell 100-250k/wk
Call of Duty 4 - Post Halo3 FPS that's must-have
Mass Effect - WRPG GOTY.
Bioshock - Duh...Top 10 game of all time.
Project Gotham 4 - XBox's top racer w/ actual userbase now.
NFS: Pro-Street - NFS series always sells well

+ Budget titles.

Those top 6 games - which ones will do the best? Most likely H3, CoD4, ME and Bioshock will all manage around 100k/wk in December. That could boost Bioshock to 1.5m or even 2m by the end of the year...Simply because between H3 launch and the end of December, your going to have well over 2m new X360 users, and probably a 4.0 software attach ratio.

EA's Army of Two is also going to be released this fall and it is looking good, highly polished. Co-op multi player is what this generation is all about. Plus never underestimate EA's ability to market a game. Army of Two is the EA's number one game waiting to drop, followed by the Simpsons. The EA juggernaut cannot be stopped.