Halo 2 dominates November sales charts

xbox365 ^ | 12/10/2004 | Gamesindustry.biz

[KwasiOwusu]

Halo 2 has dominated the November sales chart around the world - in the US, Halo 2 is sat pretty at both number one (standard edition) and number three (limited edition) and racking up almost 3.3 million unit sales in total

[KwasiOwusu]

Analysts also noted that Microsoft's Xbox console saw unit sales rise almost 52 percent in the month over a year earlier, while Sony's PlayStation 2 had an 18 percent year-over-year unit decline.
Add to that $125 million of halo 2 sales in the first 24 hours after it was released (a new record).
Plus 5 million Halo units sold worldwide in just 3 weeks.

Then we have the 'Halo 2'strategy Book which became Random House's Best Seller Since Clinton, and the huge Halo 2 effect on online gaming and we have the biggest thing to hit video games for a very long time.
And a very nice bump in Microsoft's revenues and earnings for this quarter.
Personally , I think the games division may just break even for the December quarter.

http://www.entertainment-news.org/breaking/12481/halo-2-book-randoms-best-seller-since-clinton.html

[the lone highschooler]

I'm not one who is into the whole "video games" craze, (and it's not allowed in my house either) but I remember when Halo "1" first came out, and the obsessiveness about it... Halo 2 now shows up and has taken over the popularity charts with it's not-so-new alien fighting, and player-against-player fighting. And, indeed, the graphics have since improved.

Now, I may not really be "all knowing" about such games as this (cause I find it not really exciting) but isn't it really the same thing with any other battle-one-another and fight-against-aliens game? what makes Halo 2 such a grand hit?

[Bogey78O]

Probably an improved engine. Every year the coders try and take the level of gameplay up a notch, Half Life2 is not that great from a mission standpoint but the level of realism placed in the characters and surroundings make up for it.

[KwasiOwusu]

Way I see it, America invented the video game industry, and yet before Microsoft came along, the industry was dominated by the Japanese who had completely taken it over.
Since we are spending something like $12 Billion every year on video games in this country, its got to be a very good thing that an American company is busy kicking butt in this business and taking a big and fast increasing slice of the action

[John Will]

Like the Auto Industry?

[KwasiOwusu]

Like the the computer hardware and software industry, where American companies dominate.
Microsoft XBOX is already clobbering Nintendo gamecube in the video game industry as we speak.
Next target, Sony, when the next generation of video games come out.

[KwasiOwusu]

Even more hundreds of millions of mostly profits into Microsoft's coffers this quarter from Halo 2 alone, after spending max $30 million on developing and marketing Halo 2.
The Microsoft Financial Juggernaut continues unabated. :)