Halo series sales hit 50 million
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Microsoft's sci-fi shooter franchise reaches new sales milestone; Halo 4 contributes roughly 4 million copies; free-to-enter tournament begins December 17.
Microsoft has now sold 50 million Halo games since the series launched more than a decade ago with 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved. The company announced the news this morning, reiterating that players have spent more than 5 billion hours playing Halo on Xbox Live.
Prior to Halo 4's worldwide launch on November 6, the Halo series stood at 46 million in sales. This suggests Microsoft's newest entry has shifted 4 million copies thus far. Halo 4 generated $220 million in 24-hour revenue at launch, with $300 million expected for its first week.
Microsoft has released eight Halo games to date, all of which have been first-person shooters, with the exception of 2009's strategy game Halo Wars. These include Halo: Combat Evolved (2001), Halo 2 (2004), Halo 3 (2007), Halo Wars (March 2009), Halo 3: ODST (September 2009), Halo: Reach (September 2010), Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (2011), and Halo 4 (2012).
Bungie Studios created the Halo series, though the company has since moved on to an all-new franchise to be published by Activision. Microsoft's new 343 Industries label is now responsible for all things Halo and is currently working on at least Halo 5 and Halo 6.
In addition to revealing lifetime sales figures for the Halo series, Microsoft today announced a new free-to-enter Halo 4 tournament. The Halo 4 Infinity Challenge begins December 17 and tasks players will competing on global leaderboards across the game's War Games and Spartan Ops modes for a chance to win prizes. Players can register for the Halo 4 Infinity Challenge today through the promotion's website.
The tournament is powered by Virgin Gaming, and its grand prize is a UNSC-themed V8-powered 2013 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor truck designed by 343 Industries. The winner of the Spartan Ops tournament will be awarded an appearance in a future Halo game. For full details on the Halo 4 Infinity Challenge, check out the tournament's website.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
114 comments
First of all no offence to the people who like these games but as long as the sales are so high there is no change in sight. It's just the same over and over again. Gameplay...the same,story...nothing new,I get bored. And they keep making them because it sells.
@Borrizee same story? you sir are a dumbass
every halo game (beside the first) comes a huge amount of plot and people
it's not microsoft's COD it's halo (altho 343i are turning it into sorta cod thingy on the multiplayer)
i bet you havn't even played odst or wars
and those games were different,
and i agree halo 4 was much less then i expacted
so yeah it sucks only because it's in the wrong industry (343)
@thequickshooter no use in calling names,first it's my opinion,second you lost you're bet. I played the wars series with my wife in coop(she loves these games) I played halo1,killzone,resistance,... It's just not my thing. I still play shooters with friends but its not my thing. So before you call someone dumbass...ask in a different way things you want to no.
@thequickshooter no,like I said I'm not going to play games I don't like. But I watched my wife play all halo's and much other shooters. Shooters for me(again,only my opinion)are mostly the same. Like my wife likes no RPG games I don't like shooters.
you'd think with all that success and money that they would have actually come up with a single new idea of their own for their games.
Guess thats too much to ask tho in the age of idiocy.
This comment has been deleted
Halo CE is still my favorite and it will most likely stay that way
You could never recreate the amount of fun that was had at the countless LAN parties I got to take part in.
How about not making 3 games for money and making one great game.Of course its MS,they're gonna milk this to hell.
@steelmouth your ashamed of 'not' having 8 halo's?
Lol and here i thought they were the lowest of the low, but come to find out the noobest people on earth have groupies!
The bar never stops falling apperently.
1 Like @Crush_Project @steelmouth Not to mention the people who think they are superior than others but the only thing they do is insult others. Can't escape from such people wherever you go apperently.
wow thats 6mil a game for an exclusive franchise on a console that only sells in the US, bravo ms bravo
1 Like @DrKill09 halo sold this much because people like you keep commenting on its articles hence making it look like the big deal that it is
HALO believe the hype
Wow Halo 4. Putting up the big money there... with 4 million... compared to the 46 million 6 games pulled together in times when the video game industry was a small percentage of what it is today.
@kingcole225 Yeah. 4 Million is still solid, but Halo isn't the huge name that it used to be. There's a lot more competition than there used to be, Halo hasn't evolved as much as other franchises, and only being available on a single platform probably hasn't helped anything. Also, for various, mostly stupid reasons, Call of Duty has become insanely popular, sucking up the 13-25 year old stoner/wannabe fratboy market that used to be one of Halo's most loyal demographics.
@t3hninj4 @kingcole225 Every time Halo comes out, it eclipses everything the market has to offer. Blops 2 sold more that's a given now, but is it still talked like Halo?
@R2C25 @t3hninj4 @kingcole225 probably, because more people have access to Blops 2 than Halo 4. I honestly didn't even realised it was released, until reading about it online. All the shops near me had BLOPS2 posters everywhere instead of Halo 4 ones.
6 Like Halo deserves it although as a PC Gamer i only played Halo 1 and 2 and i really like it.
Call Of Duty Black Ops 2 doesnt deserve the sales.
2 Like Watch as Halo slowly becomes less popular over the next few games, just like COD.
at least Halo has been changed over its course of time. CoD hasn't changed it's just a reskin and everything else remains the same.
2 Like @gatsbythepig The player community is liking Halo 4 better than Reach at least, and it's holding onto its online player count a bit better.
So no, Halo is not declining right now. The time to say that would have been two years ago when everyone was hating on Reach.
1 Like @gatsbythepig Idk if that will happen, I doubt they will do a yearly release like COD since it's only one studio developing them. So there will be a long enough gap between each new game. COD is still pretty darn popular if you ask me.
Woo hoo, the numbers are in!There are 50 million people supporting games that are completely counter-innovative!Go kill yourselves, all of you, and bury your generic FPS garbage with you.
@VenkmanPHD I've seen you on multiple feeds, and all you do is troll. Is there anything you do support?
@VenkmanPHD Telling people who play a certain game to kill themselves? Sound like a personal problem.
5 Like @VenkmanPHD Counter-innovative trash doesn't influence an entire generation of FPS games, including precious PC shooters. Nearly every shooter now uses innovations first introduced by Halo.
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- Publisher(s): Microsoft Game Studios
- Developer(s): 343 Industries
- Genre: Action
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- ESRB: M
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