Halo 2 reaches half-billion matchmaking games played milestone
by James Ransom-Wiley 
{ Jun 6th 2006 at 5:55PM }
Yesterday, according to Bungie, the 500,000,001st game of Halo 2 was played on Xbox Live. To be clear, this number does not include player-sessions or games that were lost because Bungie.net was down, or other technical issues.While it's certainly an achievement Bungie should be proud of, it's hardly a surprise. 6.4 million units of the game were sold in less than three months. Even if another copy was never sold, and even if only 5% of those 6.4 million units were associated with an Xbox Live account (that's 320,000 unique players) -- and given that the game has been in release for 573 days -- each of those 320,000 players would only need to average (roughly) 3 matchmaking games per day. C'mon, the Joystiq crew clocks those numbers before breakfast.
Let us know when you hit 1 billion, Bungie. Then we'll be impressed. (We kid, we kid.)
[Thanks, Shizzle]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jOEfRO @ Jun 6th 2006 6:01PM
i have no life or halo 2 is my life and i wouldnt be suprised if ive played in 5,000 games, with my 8 accounts ive been through, i love halo and i cant wait to get that number up to a billion
Fanboyism @ Jun 6th 2006 6:16PM
jOEfRO is the reason you have 8 acconts is your a modder/cheater?
dan s. @ Jun 6th 2006 6:18PM
That number would have been so much higher, that much faster if cheaters/jerks/obvious flaws with the game hadn't caused so many people to quit.
I'd play Halo 2 obsessively except for the fact that I'm thouroughly disgusted by the experience.
Matthew @ Jun 6th 2006 6:32PM
You guys (Joystiq) were impressed. If you weren't, you wouldn't have found that it was worthy enough to post on your site. :p But anyway, it doesn't matter how you slice it, those are impressive numbers. Period.
jOEfRO @ Jun 6th 2006 7:12PM
no im 100% legit, but me and my friends do find new glitches and super bounces everyday, check high impact halo for videos im in, usually im under unwanted fro
Varian @ Jun 6th 2006 7:24PM
Come on, Microsoft! Surely you can throw more numbers at us as a lame marketing attempt. Here are some I can think of:
-How many times have Xbox 360s been turned on?
-How many downloads have been made with Xbox Live? (Already done)
-How many button presses has Xbox 360 controllers have had yet?
-How many custom avatar pics have been used?
-How many minutes of voice chat has gone through Xbox Live? (zOMG a million hours probably!)
-How many times have characters died in Halo 2 matches?
-How many times have Halo 2 players fired weapons in online matches? (probably a trillion, zOMG)
Microsoft's Internal Game Studio (formerly known as Bungie) is just throwing numbers at us. If these numbers are relevant, why not the above ones as well? And, more importantly, there is no context to these numbers. How does this compare to, say, Starcraft matches on Battlenet? The reason why there is no attempt to put the numbers in context (as in comparing them against some standard, any standard) is because this is a marketing stunt. The human mind cannot comprehend a million or a billion. By throwing in such numbers, not only is Microsoft not clarifying anything, it is a marketing gimimck trying to say, "Look how popular Halo is!" As compared to... what? Bungie provides no answer because it is a meaningless statistics upchuck.
Let us pretend another company did the exact same thing. Pretend Nintendo (provided they could obtain such information) released to the world that there have been a trillion 'pets' on the puppies of Nintendogs. What does that say? Nothing because of no context.
If bloggers want to be seen as legitimate news sources, they need to not fall prey to marketing stunts as this story is.
Jason W @ Jun 6th 2006 7:34PM
"Let us pretend another company did the exact same thing. Pretend Nintendo (provided they could obtain such information) released to the world that there have been a trillion 'pets' on the puppies of Nintendogs." said the flamming fanboy Varian.
To tell the truth Varian Nintendo did release when they had 2 million online users for the DS. All these corporations do the same thing. Its called marketing and I enjoy it. I like to know what is popular in the online world. If you dont then dont read it, if you read it, please understand history before you comment. The fact is there are 3 worthy this gen and last gen systems and all will release PR items like this to tell us how they are doing.
bookishboy @ Jun 6th 2006 10:13PM
Unfortunately, fully 400 million of those games were people trying to get a specific gametype (say, Capture-The-Flag) and instead having to get stuck in (or quit out of) a totally unwanted game (Another round of Team Snipers, anyone?).
Optimatch my ass.
Adam @ Jun 6th 2006 11:30PM
Or as I put up on my site.
Here are some other astounding stats from Halo2's short but sweet time on Xbox Live:
* 3,278,945,003 vulgarities said
* 727,845 references to another player's mother
* 693,274,739 splatterings
* 245,805,097 poor warthog drivers
* 1,487,580,439 sniper kills
* 28,934 references to the movie Tron
Blue Spotted Frog @ Jun 6th 2006 11:55PM
And how many of these 500,000 games involved cheating, vulgar language, ethnic/racial slurs, trash talking, or harrassment? How many more games could have been played to date if these conditions were never present? Halo 2 on XBox Live disgusts me and has soured me on the entire game. I completely agree with the comments of Dan S. (#3) above.
Mark @ Jun 7th 2006 1:09AM
Don't forget:
1. 231,274,601 players labeled as Noobs.
2. 2,986,789,456 deaths accounted for by Noobs.
3. 123,562,904 tea bags.
4. 65,251,458 matches assumed as being gay.
5. 35,376,456 deaths by own team's vehicles.
6. 10 legit level 50 players. (No Mods)
Austin @ Jun 7th 2006 8:58AM
The number is impressive on its own, but the fact that this is matchmaking and not custom games, games played offline or via LAN reflects the dominance of the franchise.
that guy @ Jun 7th 2006 8:58AM
That's hilarious Mark.
Most people here are right. If Bungie could only get rid of all the cheaters AND all the moron 12 year olds who just trash talk and scream into the mic for 5 minutes, I'd be much happier with the experience.
Don't get me wrong though - when I'm able to get 3-7 friends together (or more) over Live and play a bunch of rounds, not much can come close to Halo 2 multiplayer online.
KilgoreTrout XL @ Jun 7th 2006 9:53AM
Guys, guys, the kids are alright.
Ok, sometimes they're not. But I can deal with a little shit being a pain in the ass for five seconds (before I mute him) in order to enjoy smooth-as-silk badass gunfights, in matches that are incredibly easy to find, in the best multiplayer game ever made. And I believe the addition of Team SWAT gametype in matchmaking, always a custom favorite, the experience will get even better and more popular.
There's a reason you're told who is speaking, and when. It's so you don't have to listen to them do so. Learn to mute, and learn to do it quickly.
/believing strongly in what I said five sentences ago.
Scott @ Jun 7th 2006 10:38AM
I agree with everyone who talked about cheaters, profanity, 12 year olds, matchmaking and the like. I love the game when playing with freinds, but hate it on live. If they would have made the ranking system hidden, that would have alieveated most of the cheaters.
SuicideNinja @ Jun 7th 2006 11:43AM
What I find impressive is that a year and a half later, this game is still played in high numbers every day. It will probably continue that way even a few months after Halo 3 comes out. That is a lot of matchmade games. All I know is that I've got more from my money from this game than any other game I've ever owned.
Modders aren't so common any more. I can go quite a while without coming across a modder or a standby'er. Bungie has done well to clean house.
Oh and a stat you are forgetting:
10,357,611 Players sucked at using Elites
Personally, I think most aren't good enough to play as an Elite.
PreZ @ Jun 7th 2006 12:10PM
The game is fun but it needs some help. I personally find BF2 and other PC games a lot more fun
Varian @ Jun 7th 2006 1:09PM
"To tell the truth Varian Nintendo did release when they had 2 million online users for the DS. All these corporations do the same thing. Its called marketing and I enjoy it."
Yes, but Nintendo also released a standard to put those numbers in context. If you recall, Nintendo compared their online numbers to Xbox Live in order to give those numbers context.
An empty number in a vacuum tells us ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. How do these online matches compare to... any other game? Microsoft doesn't say, it merely goes on.
Here is more history for you. Microsoft has a bad habit of doing this and suckers keep falling for it. Other marketing stunts with just shoving statistics-with-no-context has been telling us that 'millions upon millions' of dowloads had been done from Xbox Live (what is that supposed to tell?). My favorite one was Microsoft saying how many Halo 2 games sold during the first week and declaring it "the biggest opening in entertainment history, above Spiderman 2." Tons of sales at a beginning means a hyped game. Seeing it for what it is, I would not be so proud.
The big newsflash is that Halo 2 is nowhere near as popular as Microsoft's intense marketing has made it to be. In terms of sales numbers, Halo 2 has sold the same as games such as Super Mario Sunshine and Nintendogs. N64 game of Goldeneye has outsold Halo 2. Grand Theft Auto 3 and its sequels, of course, outsells everything.
I DON'T WANT YOU GUYS TO BE A PAWN OF MARKETERS. Only two million Xbox users subscribed to Xbox Live. Only around half of Xbox 360 users have subcribed to Xbox Live. Notice how in the Joystiq story, they talk about the total number of Halo 2 units sold. The problem is that most of those Halo 2 units aren't subscribed to Xbox Live.
If Halo 2 was so popular, why doesn't Microsoft compare its numbers to ANY standard, either any other game or online service? The reason why is that Halo 2 is nowhere near as popular as has been made out to be. Intense Microsoft marketing has created that illusion.
It reminds me of Playstation generation gamers who believe that games suddenly became 'mainstream' when Sony entered the market. I show them the numbers that console penetration hasn't reached beyond 33% householdds (first reached during the NES). The only real thing that has changed has been gargantuan marketing budgets.
If you want to be the useful fool of marketing, go ahead. But I'll point out a marketing stunt when it appears any day, any time. How stupid does Microsoft think we are?