Support NeoGAF

[Chobel]

Halo 3 did sold more than Halo 4 WW first week.

Halo 4 had more players in the first week. From the PR

“Halo 4” also shattered the record for the largest number of players in the history of the “Halo” franchise, with over 4 million players in the first five days

 

[Monster Zero]

There is one stat we can compare with Halo 3 / Halo 4.

Halo 3 "Within the first day of its launch, “Halo 3” players worldwide racked up more than 3.6 million hours of online gameplay, which increased more than elevenfold to 40 million hours by the end of the first week,"

40 million hours in first week for Halo 3

Halo 4 "with over 4 million players in the first five days. Users spent a total of 31.4 million hours playing “Halo 4,”

31.4 million hours in first week for Halo 4

Halo 5 "Fans have logged more than 21 million hours of total gameplay, including 12 million hours in campaign mode alone."

21 million hours in the first week for Halo 5




You can see how the activity dropped from the releases... almost half of Halo 3 and Halo 3 activity was sp focused.

When Halo 4 launched, install base was 77mil consoles. Halo 5 had 15mil units. Think Halo 3 had 8mil units or so? Halo 3 was a monster

 

[ethomaz]

Halo 4 had more players in the first week. From the PR

Ops... sorry... I was comparing units sold and Halo 3 opened with a little more WW but less on NPD.
Active users seems like Halo 4 did better but played less.

The full Halo 3 PR.

More than 2.7 million gamers have played “Halo 3” on Xbox LIVE in the first week, representing nearly one-third of the 7 million Xbox LIVE members worldwide. Within the first day of its launch, “Halo 3” players worldwide racked up more than 3.6 million hours of online gameplay, which increased more than elevenfold to 40 million hours by the end of the first week,

When Halo 4 launched, install base was 77mil consoles. Halo 5 had 15mil units. Think Halo 3 had 8mil units or so? Halo 3 was a monster

360 had 7 million userbase from MS PR at Halo 3 launch.

 

[wolffy71]

Expecting sales to equal prior Halo games is silly and its not something that the company should look to focus on. The install base is much smaller at this point. Determining the actual games strength is better measured by the attach rate and hours played per player. They want to know what percentage of xbox gamers bought it and how much they like it i.e. play it.

Releasing the flat out sales numbers would just get a bunch of non-thinking fanboys all excited. And that would be bad PR.

 

[Kill3r7]

Fair is not a requirement in PR.



This could be explained by Halo 5 having lower sales. Though Halo 4 being lower than Halo 3 is a weird one.

Campaign length. So far, we have only had about 100 threads complaining about the length.

 

[Caja 117]

Halo 4 had more players in the first week. From the PR

You have to factor in that by the time of Halo 3, people played offline way more, and the number of consoles was lower as well.

 

[LifEndz]

"Halo 5 release down from previous entries, still posts numbers that 95% of games would kill for"

*cue onslaught of negativity*

Who's being negative about the sales? Is discussion about units sold negative?

 

[Ricky Ricardo]

What was the install base on 360 when Halo 4 launched?
What is the install base on XBO with Halo 5?

There's a lot of eager disingenuousness going on in this thread. People desperate to get numbers so we can show that Halo has ... flopped? I'm not sure what the objective for some is.

 

[Beautiful Ninja]

FPS's don't draw the big twitch numbers brother. Not much interactivity

CS: GO is consistently one of the top handful of games on twitch along with LoL, DOTA 2 and Hearthstone. Destiny is also pretty consistently in the top 10 and I wouldn't be surprised if Overwatch maintains a top 10 presence as well.

 

[Obliterator]

What was the install base on 360 when Halo 4 launched?
What is the install base on XBO with Halo 5?

There's a lot of eager disingenuousness going on in this thread.

I guess I should post again how install base has had very little impact on Halo launch volume? What do you think guys?

 

[jayu26]

Halo 4 had more players in the first week. From the PR

Ops... sorry... I was comparing units sold and Halo 3 opened with a little more WW but less on NPD.
Active users seems like Halo 4 did better but played less.

In this case I think we have to throw away the metric of number of hours played, since it's not really telling us anything about sells pattern.

Campaign length. So far, we have only had about 100 threads complaining about the length.

lol

I guess I should post again how install base has had very little impact on Halo launch volume? What do you think guys?

Do it.

 

[LifEndz]

Expecting sales to equal prior Halo games is silly and its not something that the company should look to focus on. The install base is much smaller at this point.

I think a mod said the X1 install base is very similar to the 360 install base when Halo 3 launched.

 

[cakely]

Releasing the flat out sales numbers would just get a bunch of non-thinking fanboys all excited. And that would be bad PR.

Oh, hey, that was super-subtle. I almost didn't catch that.

 

[Chobel]

Every Halo game since 2 had software and hardware that led up to those big numbers. Including other game franchises like COD. This isn't exactly new.

Then it's really weird. Why include "hardware" now if they can make the PR without mentioning it (like the old PR for previous Halos)?

 

[CassidyIzABeast]

I think a mod said the X1 install base is very similar to the 360 install base when Halo 3 launched.

Halo 3 was 5 Halo games ago.

 

[Scrawnton]

I guess it's cool to crap on Microsoft now, so I will congratulate them and go back to enjoying Halo 5. It's a fantastic game.

 

[jelly]

What was the install base on 360 when Halo 4 launched?
What is the install base on XBO with Halo 5?

There's a lot of eager disingenuousness going on in this thread. People desperate to get numbers so we can show that Halo has ... flopped? I'm not sure what the objective for some is.

There was less 360 users when Halo 3 launched than Xbox One users and Halo 5.

 

[killroy87]

Who's being negative about the sales? Is discussion about units sold negative?

They aren't inherently positive. Why do so many people care about binary units sold? It paints such a narrow picture of the overall engagement of the title, and only serves to provide out-of-context comparisons to past titles.

I dunno, it just seems silly to me for people to look at all this data, and the first thing out of a lot of people's mouths (not everyone, mind you) to be "but how many units did it sell?

 

[AmaterasuOni]

Dafuq is this sh*t MS!? Seriously? No real sales numbers? That just helps what naysayers are spinning. And round and round we go. Dam.

That's not the naysayers who are spinning things.

 

[farisr]

Expecting sales to equal prior Halo games is silly and its not something that the company should look to focus on. The install base is much smaller at this point. Determining the actual games strength is better measured by the attach rate and hours played per player. They want to know what percentage of xbox gamers bought it and how much they like it i.e. play it.

Halo 3 launched 22 months after the 360 launched.
Halo 5 launched 23 months after the Xbox One launched.

The Xbox One has been outpacing the 360's console sales so far, so the install base is actually bigger.

I do think this has a shot of doing better than Halo 4 (in terms of player engagement, longevity). I doubt any Halo game could match up to Halo 3 again though in terms of engaging the player.

 

[Dunlop]

I guess I should post again how install base has had very little impact on Halo launch volume? What do you think guys?

Between the UK thread and here you seen very invested in making sure everyone sees Halo 5 as a failure lol.

It's pretty clear Halo underperformed, PR is doing their job.

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

Assume all money came from the halo 5 bundle:

$400M/500 = 800K

Now assume all money came from the regular edition of Halo 5 and MS only counts what it gets and not total revenue from the POS at the store.

$400M/45 = 8.89M

So 800K < Halo 5 < 8.89M

Lol

 

[AP90]

You have to factor in that by the time of Halo 3, people played offline way more, and the number of consoles was lower as well.

And the fact that you had split screen available... That alone could potentially multiply the numbers up a factor.

 

[FleetFeet]

There is one stat we can compare with Halo 3 / Halo 4.

Halo 3 "Within the first day of its launch, “Halo 3” players worldwide racked up more than 3.6 million hours of online gameplay, which increased more than elevenfold to 40 million hours by the end of the first week,"

40 million hours in first week for Halo 3

Halo 4 "with over 4 million players in the first five days. Users spent a total of 31.4 million hours playing “Halo 4,”

31.4 million hours in first week for Halo 4

Halo 5 "Fans have logged more than 21 million hours of total gameplay, including 12 million hours in campaign mode alone."

21 million hours in the first week for Halo 5




You can see how the activity dropped from the releases... almost half of Halo 3 and Halo 3 activity was sp focused.

What a reach... the Halo demographic that grew with the series are now working 80 hour weeks and raising families and having to paint the house and repair the white picket fence, they got no time for Halo as they use to.

Spoiler

/s

 

[VincentMatts]

Between the UK thread and here you seen very invested in making sure everyone sees Halo 5 as a failure lol.

It's pretty clear Halo underperformed, PR is doing their job.

Unperformed compared to what, when halo3 was out and there was much less competition in the AAA FPS space? Are you joking? The user base numbers are a direct result of having more good FPS games to choose from in the passed 10 years.

The people in this thread man, constant shitting on halo no matter what. Fuckin sad.

 

[Xan Kriegor]

The play time metric is really nice and confirmed what reasonable people have been saying all along: Halo is not as popular as it used to be given the strong competition since Halo 3.

 

[Monster Zero]

Between the UK thread and here you seen very invested in making sure everyone sees Halo 5 as a failure lol.

It's pretty clear Halo underperformed, PR is doing their job.

No it is not

 

[LifEndz]

They aren't inherently positive. Why do so many people care about binary units sold? It paints such a narrow picture of the overall engagement of the title, and only serves to provide out-of-context comparisons to past titles.

I dunno, it just seems silly to me for people to look at all this data, and the first thing out of a lot of people's mouths (not everyone, mind you) to be "but how many units did it sell?

The reason people are talking about sales is that this and the U.K. Thread are about...well...sales.

 

[killroy87]

Between the UK thread and here you seen very invested in making sure everyone sees Halo 5 as a failure lol.

It's pretty clear Halo underperformed, PR is doing their job.

Since you seem to have their forecasts on hand, do you mind sharing with the rest of the class?

 

[ethomaz]

No it is not

Well at least in UK and Japan it did.
The only official data we have.

 

[Obliterator]

Between the UK thread and here you seen very invested in making sure everyone sees Halo 5 as a failure lol.

It's pretty clear Halo underperformed, PR is doing their job.

Invested in seeing the game as a failure? Now that is legit funny.

Go into 90% of sales threads. I'm there. Thats what I talk about. I like numbers and industry trends. I've congratulated MS and 343 in this very thread.

 

[tattooed_dwarf]

Then it's really weird. Why include "hardware" now if they can make the PR without mentioning it (like the old PR for previous Halos)?

But I heard that everyone interested on Halo had already bought console and it isn't system seller anymore...

 

[Thebeardofknowledge]

When Halo 4 launched, install base was 77mil consoles. Halo 5 had 15mil units. Think Halo 3 had 8mil units or so? Halo 3 was a monster

What are you talking about ? There is no fucking way MS has sold through 15 million consoles.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

I just played Arena for 3 hours and had a fantastic time. That's what matters.

 

[stay gold]

Still a top tier franchise as evidenced by the fact it made a shit load of money already. It obviously peaked with Halo 3, but expecting MS to highlight that in their PR is dumb.

 

[Lothars]

No it is not

I think there's proof that sales are lower than though they would be. Is that underperformed? depending on what you think but it does show that halo 5 is showing lower numbers than it's predecessors.

 

[ethomaz]

But I heard that everyone interested on Halo had already bought console and it isn't system seller anymore...

It was the best selling Xbone SKU at amazon... way ahead any other Xbone SKU.

Spoiler

I know you are being sarcastic

 

[sam777]

Is hardware the halo limited edition console only?

 

[farisr]

But I heard that everyone interested on Halo had already bought console and it isn't system seller anymore...

While I know you're being snarky, hardware can include more than just consoles.

 

[killroy87]

I think there's proof that sales are lower than though they would be. Is that underperformed? depending on what you think but it does show that halo 5 is showing lower numbers than it's predecessors.

That's literally one thing there is zero proof of, since companies rarely show off their projections. Situations like EA commenting on 13 mil for Battlefront are rare, and even that statement is talking six month sales.

 

[ethomaz]

Is hardware the halo limited edition console only?

No.
There are two XB1 Halo 5 Controller at $70.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Why can't people just say "Congratulations on the awesome sales" and move on?

Why do you have to know 100% of the sales details to know if did good? Did they play on PR a bit sure, but it doesn't change the fact they made a ton of money and the game is a success, just say congrats and move on holy hell.

A lot of it is because in the past MS trumpeted loudly that their game sold X number copies in Y days, and used it to boast about how strong their software was and how popular their console, and now they're trying to muddy the waters and hide this information. They created this monster.

 

[Obliterator]

Is hardware the halo limited edition console only?

We dont know really. Could include stuff like the two stand alone controllers as well but the PR is vague enough there is no real way of knowing.

 

[jroc74]

There is one stat we can compare with Halo 3 / Halo 4.

Halo 3 "Within the first day of its launch, “Halo 3” players worldwide racked up more than 3.6 million hours of online gameplay, which increased more than elevenfold to 40 million hours by the end of the first week,"

40 million hours in first week for Halo 3

Halo 4 "with over 4 million players in the first five days. Users spent a total of 31.4 million hours playing “Halo 4,”

31.4 million hours in first week for Halo 4

Halo 5 "Fans have logged more than 21 million hours of total gameplay, including 12 million hours in campaign mode alone."

21 million hours in the first week for Halo 5




You can see how the activity dropped from the releases... almost half of Halo 3 and Halo 3 activity was sp focused.

Thank you for giving us something more straight forward to measure things by.

 

[Hedon]

Well at least in UK and Japan it did.
The only official data we have.

Ah, no, we don't even have that official data. We still need the digital sales, which are a large part this gen.

 

[Lothars]

That's literally one thing there is zero proof of, since companies rarely show off their projections. Situations like EA commenting on 13 mil for Battlefront are rare, and even that statement is talking lifetime sales.

Microsoft has done it before for pretty much every halo game released. when they don't for halo 5 than I think it's convenient that they don't.

Ah, no, we don't even have that official data. We still need the digital sales, which are a large part this gen.

It's been proven time and time again in the last couple threads that digital sales account for about 20% up to 30% at the highest. We don't have exact proof of digital sales but we have averages from digital games.

 

[LifEndz]

Halo 3 was 5 Halo games ago.

Over 8 years and 2 of those 5 are remasters so that isn't that crazy....I guess.

 

[Dunlop]

Invested in seeing the game as a failure? Now that is legit funny.

Go into 90% of sales threads. I'm there. Thats what I talk about. I like numbers and industry trends. I've congratulated MS and 343 in this very thread.

Sorry I meant to edit the thread and my boss ambushed me lol

Failure to meet their sales expectations, not a financial failure

 

[EvB]

These threads are amazing . Everyone used to dispute the 360 sales figures as inflated because of the RROD, now when that doesn't factor into the argument people want to present, it's disregarded

 

[Somnia]

A lot of it is because in the past MS trumpeted loudly that their game sold X number copies in Y days, and used it to boast about how strong their software was and how popular their console, and now they're trying to muddy the waters and hide this information. They created this monster.

Except now they are like pretty much every company in gaming who do NOT give direct sales #'s for games.

I can only think of Indie's now adays and a few outliers (like with Witcher) giving hard numbers. None of the major publishers release PR statements with exact #'s of sales in the first week anymore. Heck Sony doesn't even give PS4 sales #'s on Hardware every month and they keep winning each month.

This is basically how it is going to be for everyone going forward, we'll have to use financial reporting, npd, etc. to figure it out.