Halo 3 garners $170 million in US first day, breaks records

by Ross Miller on Sep 26th 2007 5:47PM

Microsoft has just sent word that its flagship soldier Master Chief has come back from the battlefield with $170 million dollars in the first 24 hours of Halo 3 deployment in the United States. As noted, this would mark the biggest day in US entertainment history, beating out Spider-Man 3 and all Harry Potters (of course, the price of entry for those events were a lot less, but that's a technicality when it comes to record books).

According to the press release, September 25 was also Xbox Live's most active day so far, thanks in no small part to one million online Halo 3 players. Bundled with every copy of Halo 3 was a free 48 hour trial, so we're interested in seeing how many people tomorrow decide to pay the Gold fee and keep on fragging.

We're eagerly awaiting the sales figures for the game elsewhere in the world, especially Japan.

[Via Press Release]

Tags: 343-Industries, breakingnews, bungie, Bungie-Studios, FPS, halo, Halo-3, halo3, microsoft, Microsoft-Game-Studios, money, profit, Xbox-360, xboxlive

Reader Comments (96)

I was pretty sure they'd beat $150 million, but not by $20 million.(!)

japan = 5

That was so not funny...

I laughed...

which also happens to be the number of ps3's sold

So true. Anyway, I'm sure Harry potter beats this out.

Last book sold 11 million 1st day at $35 each is $385 million in one day.

Where are your math skills Joystiq?

Harry Potter 7 sold 11 million copies at 35$ each on the 1st day, earning $385 million dollars.....and thats not even counting the audio books.

oh, so NOW my 1st post shows up....now i look stupid.

Yeah, but books are often sold at 30%, 25% etc off (ay least at borders and B&N) so just multiplying by the suggested cost might not be accurate.

35 bucks for the harry potter book...i guess i got luck on amazon and paid 20 bucks.

thats pretty amazing.

wat was halo 2's numbers?

I believe it was 120 million.

Over nine thousand.

We all knew Halo 3 would sell well. Congrats Microsoft, congrats.

I just can't believe this....I mean, who would have seen this coming? Nobody I tell you, nobody!!!

Cool. I wonder how the game's bottom line is looking after just one day? $170m - all of the sales dollars that go to middlemen - advertising and product tie-in costs - development, production, and distribution costs = ?

It'd be pretty impressive if they were in the black on the game after just one day.

Well, if you just took day one sales, they would probably be deep in the red

They easily spent 2x this revenue on advertising alone, but they'll net those returns back many times over (and not only in Halo 3, also in LIVE subscriptions, headsets, and other peripherals sold with it)

Actually, quite a few brands asked Microsoft to be part of the Halo marketing. Pepsico shelled out the money for Game Fuel, not Microsoft. I still doubt this will put them in the black, but Microsoft got a lot of cash from other companies wanting to ride the Halo train all the way to Moneytown.

Dude, M$ only spent 10mil on marketing for Halo 3, and if you include the actual production of the game including all costs it's around 60 mil. That means they game has already brought in 110 mil, 80% of which goes directly into Microsoft's pockets.
You seriously thinkthey spent over 300 million dollars to market a video game?

MS hasn't spent that much on advertising, which may be shocking to some. BK, Pontiac, and Pepsi all paid to ride the Halo train. They no doubt spent a few million making those short films and will spend more on commercials in the coming months.

But up until now, the vast majority of advertising has been from sites anywhere from msn to joystiq to fox news putting story after story up on a popular piece of our gaming culture.

How many commercials for the game have you seen on TV? I've seen more for Lost Planet, Gears, and Prime 3 in my day than for Halo 3. That's the honest truth. I bet they have spent 20 million advertising this thing and will spend another 10 or 20 in the coming months when they really hit the commercials with it.

"How many commercials for the game have you seen on TV?"

In five hours of TV I watched in the past week, I saw 17 commercials for Halo 3, including a 30 second tie-in to the NFL on CBS. At more than 3 per hour, I think that's a lot.

not a bad days work for Bill.

What? You mean it didn't break $200 million? For shame!

they'll break $350 million easy (~5 million copies if you take the specials and legendary editions) and may even $700 million by the twilight of the Xbox 360. Don't forget that Halo 2 sold over 7 million copies by the end of the original Xbox's life cycle. One thing's for sure... Bungie has just bank-rolled the next 3 years of development for what ever awesomeness they will think up next and MGS (Microsoft Games Studios) will be poised to take risker chances on creative titles. User generated content (especially with MGS) is also panning out to be a much more viable proposition. Many facets will benefit from this. Don't forget all this hype cost Microsoft $10 million because of very smart co-marketing efforts: This will usher a new way to market ESTABLISHED IPs. I also can't imagine how such deep market penetration doesn't grow the industry as well as the install base of the associated platforms. Halo 3 just isn't a win... it's a complete win for everyone involved from Bungie right down to me :)

In terms of bang for your buck, let's say admission to Spider-Man 3 was $8. For a 140 minute runtime you're paying $3.43/hour. At that rate Halo 3 would have to net you 17.5 hours of playtime.

Considering how much I played Halo 2, that should be a snap.

The poster needs to check his economics here. The more expensive something is, the less people demand. At the very least, we're talking about a $60 product.

That makes this all the more impressive in my book.

it's not his lack of economics, its just joystiq's usual slant on MS stories

Woah, hello high school econ. That only works in simplified economics. There's this thing called utility. The value a customer gets out of a $60 is worth the entry price (30 - 50 hours at minimum versus a 2 hour movie).

So while it's still impressive due to the price, it's not really inexplicable. The whole point of advertising is to create that quality image.

I'll give you guys an example because apparently somebody's reading this.

Pet Rock, USD$4 in the 1970s
Wii USD$250 in 2006

Which has sold more? Price isn't the only thing that matters, obviously. Price does matter, as Sony is finding out, but what matters more is if your customers believe that the product is worth the price. Most gamers would hop at the chance to get a PS3 at $299 or even $399, but at $599 it doesn't feel worth it. At $10 a movie ticket, Harry Potter fans are going to see the movie whiles others may hold off for the $3 rental (or not see it at all).

My girlfriend says games are expensive. I say a typical game costs about $60 and I get 30-40 hours of play, $1.50 - $2 per hour. When I take her out to dinner, I spend $40 on an hour meal that I'm going to shit out in a few hours. So, what's more expensive here?

If you really study economics, you learn to take many more things than supply and demand into consideration. The Law of Demand is pre-school economics.

tell ferrari that. its a 2 year waiting list for any car in their lineup.

Heres my gamertag, lets frag

bladev1

Comparing movie openings and game sales is like comparing apples and oranges. But still, that is
a lotta moolah! Let's hope they use that cash to
fix the lagginess of XBL as of late.

But they're both fruit!

I've been saying this at work for the last two days, ignore me :)

It's like comparing apples and oranges, when the orange business is a bunch of bitches who say apples can never be considered a high art form, but the apples have once again proven that they are a more profitable industry than the oranges and shutting those oranges right up!

HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES EBERT!?!

how did the art debate get in here? Halo 3 isn't art. Spiderman 3 isn't art. Halo 3 might prove video games is the next big entertainment medium but it says nothing about art. I think the oranges are starting to figure out there's a lot of money to be made from apples... I don't know about art, though.

I'm hungry now.

Well I can say that I bought the game on the first day here in the UK, and I'm not even into xbox 360 games. The only ones I own are Dead Rising, viva pinata and gears of war. So yeah... :D they hype is all consuming but I love feeling part of something as big for gaming generally as this release.

Halo 3 ROCKS!!! Ohhh Yea

...Sounds like someone's been buying teh Haloz!

Smiling from ear to ear while they walk to DA BANK.

Kudos to MS-well deserved indeed! Hype notwithstanding, you consider ALL gamers-single player as well as onliners. May the greedy p.o.s. MMO only developers take heed [be a friend to the single player-he has a very large $$$ vote too!]

Take that Playstation 3!

Oh wait, I meant Spider-man 3. That text is just way too similar...

haha yes. noice work i give a standing ovation to bungie for all their effort put into forge, matchmaking, the rank system, and saved films. bravo, halo hater or not, this is a break through and great news for the games industry and should be celebrated by everyone. ehh nvm...maybe not sony or their zombie fanboy followers. they can change their diapers.

Why did you have to mention the PS3?

Oh well, I knew this game will do good. But after this, what else does the 360 have to offer with this much hype? Especially, next year!!!

Game On, PEACE!

Also, even WHEN they sell more copies of this than HALO 2, they still wont make any profit! Due to their "billion dollar investment"... :)

@Myke

Ninja Gaiden 2

on the matchmaking menu...i dont see any users in Japan.

there is a map of the world in the menu and white dots represent users...north america is full of dots but japan is empty.

Mr Khan

Do you really think MS spent $340 million on advertising? Wow...

I believe the total budget for this game was under $60 million

Mr. Khan, Microsoft didn't spend $350M on advertising. Not even close.

I did some research onto the numbers of Halo 3 the other day. The analysts are expecting the lifetime revenue to hit somewhere north of $600M.

They are estimating production costs including marketing to be around anywhere between $30M to $50M.

The rest is pure profit.

Well, i was just pulling numbers out of my ass anyways

Economics was never my strong suit >_

"Bundled with every copy of Halo 3 was a free 48 hour trial, so we're interested in seeing how many people tomorrow decide to pay the Gold fee and keep on fragging."

Gold is free until the 28th courtesy of Best Buy, so if you're smart you'd wait to use the 2 day trial until the 29th, and then get 5 days free.

Where is the trial code? My copy doesnt have one.

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Halo 3 garners $170 million in US first day, breaks records

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