[Update: I muddled up the figures between copies sold and money generated – I mentioned that the game generated sales of around $120,000,000.00 from pre-orders alone, but the information given now shows that they made a further $80,000,000.00 or so on the first day. Thanks Ewie for pointing it out.]
In my editorial regarding the my experience buying Halo Reach, I mentioned in the beginning that Halo Reach had already generated over $120,000,000.00 or R900,000,000.00 before it even hit a single shelf.
Last night, Major Nelson tweeted that in its opening day, Halo Reach sold 2 million copies, but hang on… the numbers I used for my calculations were based on the fact that Microsoft claimed that pre-orders had already hit 2 million a short while ago.
Something doesn’t add up.
We have an obvious case of Microsoft either providing false numbers for their pre-orders or the amazing scenario where they only sold a proverbial handful of copies in stores. There are also two ways to look at that. Either the game was so popular that it generated 90-something percent of its sales through pre-order, or the general public was not hyped up enough to buy the game when they saw it on the shelf that day. Considering that even locally, I was one of the few people who walked into a store to buy it, rather than having ordered it beforehand, I guess I can believe something like that.
First day sales are usually a good indication of a title’s popularity with the core gamer, so in this case I am actually more interested to see how its first week, or month of sales look, as well as another gander at the stats after Christmas.
Source: Major Nelson (Twitter Account)
Last Updated: September 16, 2010
Fox1
September 16, 2010 at 15:32
I suspect somebody messed up the distribution for non-preorders
ewie
September 16, 2010 at 16:06
I think the tweet was from bungie – 2 million players online at one time.
al360
September 16, 2010 at 16:11
halo smalo = my opinion :silly:
ewie
September 16, 2010 at 16:15
http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/82014/halo-reach-sells-over-3-million-units-in-the-first-24-hours/
In iot it say over 2 million unique.
The beta had 1.2 million unique users online at one time.
http://kotaku.com/5639670/halo-reachs-first-day-of-sales-hits-200-million
This is $200 Million and if my math is correct
At $60 a game, over 3 million.
ewie
September 16, 2010 at 16:17
O amd the link you provide to major got the $200 Million as well.