So this is only counting the game? What about the legendary editions and merchandise?

So you wan to sell 155 million dollars worth of product. That is not the hard part. The hard part is: how much are you willing to put into a campaign to sell that much product?

I can see it happening easily.

Just please, be good.

They will probably reach that. The bussines world will tremble, and movies everywhere will fell the first shuders of death of the medium...
Now, if only we could get more games to reach this orgasmical economic climax.

Theres 129 of my money in that 155 million.

Cant wait for Halo 3!

You need a working console in order to play games. You think they got that covered?

Does "Microsoft is kicking off the mother of all media campaigns" mean I have to listen to Mad World more?

Why do they want it to do better in a single day than Sm3 did in a weekend? O.o;

Is this realistic? Whats the xbox 360's projected install base at vs xbox 1's at the time of the halo 2 launch?

@hvnlysoldr: I'm fairly certain they're counting gross total of all 3 SKUs sold. This means that $130 edition gets counted as $130 towards the goal. They only have to sell 2.6 million copies at $60 per copy to reach 156 million. Based on the Amazon top sellers list, they are selling quite a few copies at $70 and $130.

Hi Microsoft. It's nice to want things.

@Zim:
Because if a video game where to beat a movie in opening day sales, I think it really would help show that the video game industry is a repsectable industry that isn't just for prepubescent 13 year olds an geeky 35 year olds who live in their parents' basement.

they want the people to buy the game before they see it...
good idea , they know the first two sucked

@sinny:
Quick! Back to your bridge, the billy goats are coming!

The problem with that plan is that the install base is 2x smaller than when Halo 2 came out on the originol XBOX.

They'd have to sell 2.6 million copies at 60 dollars apiece to do that.

That's even higher than Burning Crusade did in its first 24 hours, but the question is how many people will buy either of the limited editions? Because if people actually cough up for that, then they'll obviously need to sell fewer copies to get to $155 million.

Just imagine the feedback if they actually do sell that much on the first day (it may happen with Halo 3) and they don't end single player correctly...

They'll easily reach that. They managed something like $125 million with Halo 2.

They'll cook the books to make sure this happens.

The thing is at the time Halo 2 was released, the original Xbox had a much higher user base than the 360 does now. Then again, most people that bought the 360 bought it for Halo 3.

well i know ill be doing my part to help meet the goal <.<

All they need to do is basically meet the same sales as Halo 2 first day and they tie the record. This is hardly some huge thing here. When you raise the software price by 20% hoping for a 24% increase in revenue is hardly earth shattering.

@Len Bias Cocaine Surplus:
No, it means you get to.

It wouldn't be a huge surprise if they managed it. Even for people who don't like Halo, there's a reason to hope this is achieved - simply that it will really enforce the power of videogames as a very big-money and thus serious business. This would be a pretty good thing for us, as sufficient economic concerns give us a lot more weight when we tell Clinton that it's a bad idea to rag on games. If we can say "Games outdo movies" and point to hard proof, that's going to be a danged useful piece of additional firepower when citing the First.

Considering the the Special Editions are there, they'll probably do it, but you'll have to look at the number of copies sold to actually see if it's bigger than Halo 2 and Burning Crusade or not.

My guess is that it won't get there.

Whoa Microsoft, great goal you are aiming for....trying to beat a movie that people paid $6-10 for compared to a game that costs anywhere from $60 to $130.

How about you try to try to beat movies when it comes to number of customers, not dollar amount.

They'll put 100M of their own money to see this happening.

Isn't is kind of odd to anyone that MS is trying to make one of their games top sales of a Sony film?

@sinny: Right, they sucked so much, over a million of us have preordered it, willing to give Halo yet another chance. Oh and remember that thing called the Halo 3 Beta? Yeah, that didn't happen at all, it was all just a dream. So you are right, people have not seen OR played the game.

You know, if Halo 2 had sold for $60 instead of $50, they would have about $146 million instead of 125, so yeah...

Not exactly an unrealistic goal there, MS.

Oops, bad math. They would have made about $150 million. Endaround put it better, anyway.

@alucard_0007: Total victory!

That would be great but the total revenue needs to be taken into account also.

Spiderman moves make a bit over a billion each. When the foreign and domestic products are totaled from the release until it hits DVD.

I do think that it is very possible to hit 150 million in a day or two since many people bought the 360 for the promise of halo. It also costs a bit to a lot more than halo 2 did at release.

The question is will this game climb past the %50 adoption rate(300mil$$)? If it does will it cripple the sales of 3rd part software?

Halo 2 sold at $50 and $60 price points, so the average transaction was higher than $50.

Assuming that the average transaction price is $75 this time around - and that's just a WAG - they're going to need to sell 2.01M copies on day one to make those numbers.

Well, considering all three Spiderman movies were hunks of shit, I wouldn't concern myself with competing against them.

I say that we all buy the game on the second day, just to mess with 'em.

@seasponge: To be honest, I don't this would prove much. I mean, yeah, they sold $155 million dollars worth of product on the first day which beats the movie record but consider it is only about $10 per movie ticket which would mean around at least 6x more viewers for the movie on opening weekend than people who buy Halo 3. It is probably more around 15x more factoring in the collector's and legendary editions.

@Techguy1138:

"If it does will it cripple the sales of 3rd part software?"

I seriously doubt that would happen even if every 360 owner bought the game. Heck, every 360 AND PS3 owner.

Game vs. movie?

This is stupid. You can't directly compare the two.

@Stormrider900: WoW is a pc game and thus has a possible base of millions upon millions. And it does not require a "gaming standard" PC. On the other hand, the 360 has, on average, sold 10million units. Does anyone really think they can sell 2.5 copies for each 10 people that has a 360, ON LUNCH DAY? It will sell as much as this, but never on the lunch day.

@Tkrulez:

That's completely impossible and foolish to suggest. How would a $10 ticket that you don't need to invest in any hardware to use beat out a $60 game that you have to buy a 360 to use? Put things in perspective.

@sinny:

Did Kotaku start advertising at Gamespot? I can't wait for the banhammer to strike.

@endaround:

That's a good point. It still sounds impressive, anyway.

That stat is the #1 reason the $130 legendary box exists, with the lower install base they need to charge more.

I hope Halo 3 is good and all, but wouldn't it be funny if it was a total bust in terms of being a good game?

@LORDofDANCE:

Ack, long day

I meant to say how would a $60 game that you have to buy a 360 to use beat out a $10 ticket that you don't need to invest in any hardware to use? In terms of total consumers.

Having played the HALO 3 Beta.....and seen SPIDERMAN 3.....

I can honestly say I'll get my money's worth out of HALO 3 while SPIDERMAN 3 was a load of Crapola.

Way to ruin one of the best Spiderman stories and villains of all time Sony....way to go.

I think a lot of people are forgetting that the majority of the people that 'got a 360 for halo' haven't actually gotten the console yet, and are going to wait until the week or day of.

the real question is whether or not MS will have enough stock. which I'm pretty sure they will.

@Samos42:

They're not really wanting to outsell the movie to outsell the movie, they're just hoping it will prove to the naysayers just how viable the video game medium is. Believe it or not, the medium is still generally thought of as kid stuff, despite the majority of gamers being adults (who, granted, started as kids). Let that weigh heavy, pun intended, on Roger Ebert's mind.

@Kinburn:

No, that exists because crazy Halo fans expect it to, and would give an arm for it.

hmmm, eh not buying halo 3. Now if it was viva pinata