Halo 5 Had The Biggest Launch in Franchise's History

[Lizzy Finnegan]

Halo 5 Had The Biggest Launch in Franchise's History


Halo 5: Guardians is officially the biggest launch in Halo history, as well as the fastest-selling Xbox One exclusive.

Halo 5: Guardians has reached $400 million in global sales [http://news.xbox.com/2015/11/04/halo-5-guardians-biggest-halo-launch-in-history/] of game and hardware, pushing the franchise to over $5 billion over the course of its lifetime. The game not only had the biggest launch in Halo history, but also was the fastest-selling Xbox One exclusive, and was the most-played of any game on Xbox One and Xbox Live.

"The success of Halo 5: Guardians is a testament to the innovative work from the entire team at 343 Industries to bring this installment to Xbox One and the incredible community of fans who have come to love the story, characters and gameplay central to the franchise," said Phil Spencer, head of Xbox. "The game represents all the possibilities of Xbox One and has earned its place as the anchor title in the greatest holiday games lineup in Xbox history."

"Fans have logged more than 21 million hours of total gameplay, including 12 million hours in campaign mode alone," Microsoft said in a press release. "The widely praised multiplayer modes have also led to nine million total hours played with nearly seven million multiplayer matches played across Arena and the all-new Warzone mode. In addition, Halo fans are taking to the new Requisition System in a big way, with over 45 million REQ Packs acquired, totaling more than 568 million REQ Cards."

Halo 5: Guardians launched on October 27 as an Xbox One exclusive, although Frank O'Connor, Halo's franchise director, recently stated that there is "plenty of chance" of Halo 5 making its way to PC [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/161133-Plenty-of-Chance-that-Halo-5-Will-Come-to-PC].

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[Erttheking]

Something I find rather suspicious about this is that they don't come out and say how many copies were sold, but rather how much money was made, a number that can most certainly be bloated with their new bullshit microtransactions. And they say "Game and hardware" which makes me wonder if they're counting people who bought and Xbone just to play this drek. Five bucks says they didn't do that with the other games.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Something I find rather suspicious about this is that they don't come out and say how many copies were sold, but rather how much money was made, a number that can most certainly be bloated with their new bullshit microtransactions. And they say "Game and hardware" which makes me wonder if they're counting people who bought and Xbone just to play this drek. Five bucks says they didn't do that with the other games.

Bundles come to mind for me as well.

I'm sure a sizable number of people out there waited for this game to jump over onto the XBone bandwagon.

Regardless...this is just sad.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Bundles come to mind for me as well.

I'm sure a sizable number of people out there waited for this game to jump over onto the XBone bandwagon.

Regardless...this is just sad.

What's sad, and why is it so?

Halo 5 was generally the point I was waiting for to go 'next' gen and vote XB1, but it seems the campaign's a bit of a letdown (as well as being tiny). Either way, I'm still jumping aboard the MS train for other games. I'll no doubt pick up Halo sometime next year.

As for the sales 'figures': I find it hard to believe 5 - judged on units shifted - is actually the best/fastest selling Halo. But then who cares about videogame sales figures announcements anyway... They tend to be an arcane PR art.

 

[fix-the-spade]

And they say "Game and hardware" which makes me wonder if they're counting people who bought and Xbone just to play this drek.

They're obviously counting the Xbone Halo 5 bundles towards that number, which could potentially mean they've sold a million-ish copies to get that 'massive' number, it does seem to be a very specific superlative they're using.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Why do I not believe this? Its the worst rated of the entire franchise, yet its sells gang-busters?
Something doesn't add up here...

 

[RJ 17]

Too bad that everything I've heard from it - including from a friend of mine who's so obsessed with Halo that he wrote an essay to one of an author of one of the Halo books expressing everything that said author got wrong in the book - says that at best this is a mediocre entry in the series. Not so much a step-up from Halo 4, more more of a step to the side.

 

[Erttheking]

Why do I not believe this? Its the worst rated of the entire franchise, yet its sells gang-busters?
Something doesn't add up here...

Remember, those of us on message boards who care about the erosion of our consumer rights, those who care about the addition of crap like microtransactions, those of us who care about the decline of content in a series over time, those of us who go onto sites like Metacritic to give a game a score, we're the minority. We're a loud minority but still a minority nonetheless. The average Halo fan is probably going to grab the game without even realizing that there isn't split-screen or forge.

I dunno...they're avoiding saying how many copies were sold and they're just saying how much money was made. And they're including hardware, so if you bought a Xbone bundle, that's a 500 dollar purchase that counts towards this number instead of sixty. They don't do that with other games. I think Microsoft is trying to make things look better than they are, which sounds a lot like a failure to meet expectations.

Oh and the money from microstransactions is also included.

 

[Rad Party God]

"Halo fans are taking to the new Requisition System in a big way, with over 45 million REQ Packs acquired, totaling more than 568 million REQ Cards."

Yep, that's a ton of suckers spending on microtransactions alright. Also, it's kind of ironic that the most underwhelming game of the entire franchise is the "fastest selling" one.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Why do I not believe this? Its the worst rated of the entire franchise, yet its sells gang-busters?
Something doesn't add up here...

A: It's trading on the reputation of the Halo franchise.
And
B: The gaming populace has been trained to slurp up mediocrity(or out right shit) like it's life giving honey.

This sort of thing is the very reason Jim Sterling has such a platform, because the gaming industry isn't learning it's lessons. Though to be fair gamers aren't learning our lessons by not buying this crap. Game sells great, companies like EA and Microsoft continue to grin, because the immoral way they exploit their markets still works.

 

[Outcast107]

Thats right! How Dare people buy stuff we don't like!

 

[TheSapphireKnight]

As others have already mentioned, that "games and hardware" tidbit seems pretty suspect. Does hardware simply refer to console bundles? Does that include things liked themed controllers too?

Avoiding talking about specific sales numbers seems to become more and more common for AAA publishers looking to avoid discussion of actual sales numbers. They pulled something similar with Halo 4 talking about how it was the beat the Halo 3 24 hour sales record, yet that game still failed to ultimately outsell Halo 3 and still managed to die out in a hurry.

I feel like the more interesting story will be if the game itself manages to actually outsell Halo 4 in terms of unique copies in the long run. It seems like AAA game sales are becoming more and more front loaded at launch without as much long term viability.

EDIT: Looking back at some older articles it seems that Halo 3 made $300 million in its first week without that "and hardware" modifier. The legendary special edition was $120 cheaper too.

 

[TorchofThanatos]

Well I love the game and I understand why it is selling so well. Campaign is great and so is the multiplayer but to each their own guess.

 

[flashoverride]

DELETED

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I really hadn't noticed Halo even came out. Certainlynot the same kind of television media exposure that Halo 3 or Halo 2 got.

 

[Outcast107]

I really hadn't noticed Halo even came out. Certainlynot the same kind of television media exposure that Halo 3 or Halo 2 got.

Why go with Television when hardly anyone watches it anymore? Most people now a days are on the internet so mainly go focus on that. Also there were a few commercials for halo 5 that played during the Walking Dead show. As well as something else I believe but sort of forget what...

 

[Kenbo Slice]

"Halo fans are taking to the new Requisition System in a big way, with over 45 million REQ Packs acquired, totaling more than 568 million REQ Cards."

Yep, that's a ton of suckers spending on microtransactions alright. Also, it's kind of ironic that the most underwhelming game of the entire franchise is the "fastest selling" one.

You do know you can earn the req packs and it really doesn't take that much time right?