Halo 3
Halo 3 has made more dollars on launch day than anything ever in the American entertainment medium. More, even, than summer blockbuster movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Spiderman 3, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. How much? $170 million much, in the U.S. alone. Its pre-order figures were in the range of 1.7 million (copies), and Microsoft has not yet released official sales numbers for the game itself. It’s important to note the price difference between video games (particularly, Halo 3) and movies, but it is still an amazing feat. Congratulations to Bungie, Microsoft, and the Halo 3 team. I’ve played the game quite a bit already, and it’s absolutely amazing. WTB Halo MMO.
It isn’t anything advanced…. but man, it is just a good game.
What was their break-even point (BP)? What are the figures for net income, as opposed to gross revenue?
I read that the average sale price is US$78. That’s not including the cost of the hardware for new players. The barriers to entry for gamers are still incredibly high, and the units sold will reflect that. Unlike other entertainment media, games aren’t that far-reaching, at least in the United States.
Also, given the reports of scratched discs, how much product is defective and yet to be delivered to buyers? There’s reportedly a two-week delay for disc replacements. Blockbuster movies seen in theaters don’t experience that problem and that cuts manufacturing costs significantly, which means a lower BP.
Then there’s the fact that Microsoft sees games as a channel for recouping the costs of the Xbox 360 which has yet to turn a profit. How far will Halo 3 move Microsoft toward profitability for Xbox 360? Microsoft won’t see Halo 3 as a success until Xbox 360 is a success.
I wouldn’t jump on the “Halo is a success” bandwagon just yet. There’s a lot that remains to be seen.
I’m waiting until I beat the game and play with the Forge, Theater, and Matchmaking more to review the game, but so far…
It’s a solid game. The game itself isn’t innovative, it’s just a more epic version of the previous Halo games with better AI, graphics, music, physics, etc. I love that it feels more like the spiritual successor to Halo than Halo 2 did to me as well.
What takes it to the next level? Well, the first three parts are no different from the others. 1) It’s a solid shooter on a console (used to be rare). 2) Matchmaking, LAN-style split-screen multiplayer, and co-op. 3) The Story.
The other two pieces are new: the Forge, and the Theater. The Forge is like Garry’s Mod and the Theater is like Quake and other games you could see recorded games in, but in both cases they took it a step further and made it for Halo. Not to mention, they made it part of the overall package.
The solid experiences from single player, multiplayer, Theater, and Forge combine to make Halo 3 an amazing game.
Actually the projected figures place the MS Games division turning a profit for the first time based largely in part on the success of this game.
This affected only the Legendary edition (and apparently only in the US). The regular andthe one with the mini Spartan helmet did not have packaging issues. So not quite as far reaching as it could have been.
That’s somewhat surprising as it means a lot more of the two special editions sold than I thought had (plain old Halo 3 runs you around $60).
[...] Ryan Shwayder’s Nerfbat » Halo 3 Halo 3 has made more dollars on launch day than anything ever in the American entertainment medium. [...]
I’m just going by what Shane Kim said. (The charts from BBC are also helpful in showing the big picture.) Heck, even MSNBC says that Halo 3 sales gave MGS a “strong boost toward profitability.” Going toward a destination is not quite the same as being there.
Innovators and Early Adopters love “special” stuff.
I picked up the mid-level disk ($73 retail), and am enjoying it so far. Like the others, it’ll probably take 3 or 4 plays on Normal, Heroic and Legendary before I can appreciate every nuance in the main game. Along with everything else Ryan said, Halo 3 is a good model for leveraging a central intellectual property (the game world and story) and spinning that in several different ways (FPS, RTS games, books, action figures, Hero Clix figures, etc.). The IP helps sell all of the other products. (By the way, “The Fall of Reach” is a decent read; part “Ender’s Game”, part “Starship Troopers” (book, not the movie), it explains the Master Chief’s origins.)
Just saw this post from Guy Kawasaki and this post from Robert Scoble. Judging by the photo quality, I’d say Scoble’s camera is definitely better than Kawasaki’s.
I wish I lived (and worked) in Silicon Valley…