VGChartz preliminary day one sales figures are in for Halo 3 ODST and it looks like Microsoft has another monster hit on their hands.
Halo 3: OSDT launched yesterday, 22nd September 2009 in most major markets but Japan. Sales expectations for the title were mixed - on one hand it is a Halo title, but at the same time ODST has seen a fair amount of criticism for being charged at full price for what many believe is more of an expansion than a full game. With a critic review average of 8.7 and many reviewers commenting that ODST is indeed worthy of the price tag of a full game, did the sales live up to that of a Halo game?
As reported earlier in the week, final Halo 3: ODST preorders stood at around 1.35m in the Americas - lower than Halo 3's 1.95m but still impressive. Preliminary data is now in, and we can exclusively reveal that day 1 sales in the Americas were just over 1.5 million, with a further 500,000 sold in Europe and other regions. Total Halo 3: ODST sales stand at around 2 million worldwide (vs nearly 3 million for Halo 3's first day back in 2007) - generating over $160m in total revenue. Bungie leaderboards show over 950,000 users have already signed up with ODST.
So how does ODST compare to Halo 3? Sales are down around 30% on day one, but ODST still sits in an pretty exclusive club of games that can sell over two million units in a single day - ODST is comfortably ahead of other big Xbox360 titles like Gears of War 2 and Fable II in the same timeframe and should reach sales of 6-8 million before Halo Reach arrives.
It is still too early to see whether ODST will move much hardware. Conventional wisdom will suggest not really since the game will be selling primarily to those who already own Halo 3 but there will be a small boost associated with the high profile release of the title and general marketing buzz.
http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=5279
