Can Halo 3 upset Halo 2 for the most gross sales in a single day on any piece of electronic media in history? Halo 2 currently holds the record from when its 2.38 million units sold totaled over $125 million during the 24 hours of November 9th, 2004. On September 25th, 2007, Halo 3 is gunning for the top, but can it be done? Let’s see what the numbers say.
In case you’re curious, opening day video game sales far surpass opening days for Hollywood films. The top-grossing opening day for a film is currently that of Spiderman 3 at $60 million. To get close to Halo 2’s opening day you’d have to compare the opening weekend of Spiderman 3 at $151 million. Most video game opening days are quite tame in comparison to Halo 2.
Here’s the problem: the install base of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 stands at 8.9 million units sold worldwide compared to the 20 million Xboxen that were in homes as of November 2004. That’s less than half, and the most significant problem Microsoft has to overcome.
Preorders are another good metric to examine, and Halo 3 is lacking there too: 1 million preorders compared to 1.5 million for Halo 2. However, Halo 3 does have one factor in its favor in the race for making some sweet mula with Uncle Rico: retail price. Halo 2 launched at $49.99 for the standard version and $54.99 for the collector’s edition. Halo 3’s cheapest version will sell for $5 more at $59.99, limited editions for $69.99, an legendary editions will graciously pad the numbers with a retail price of $129.99. Soak that one in. For ever person purchasing a legendary edition of Halo 3 its as if they’re buying 2.17 units of the regular edition (from a gross sales standpoint).
Furthermore, I think Halo 3 will have a higher attach rate than Halo 2. During the last quarter of 2004 Halo 2 showed an attach rate of 30%. That means of everyone with an Xbox, 30% had purchased Halo 2 between November 9th and December 31st 2004, or about 6.3 million units. That doesn’t represent a launch day figure, but it’s good for reference. Because of the hardcore nature of Xbox 360 gamers (due largely to the expense of current-gen consoles) I think Halo 3 will enjoy more Xbox 360 owners purchasing it on launch day than Halo 2. It’s my perception that Xbox 360s generally have an older install base than the original Xbox. This means that Xbox 360 gamers are more likely to control their own funds and therefore more likely to purchase Halo 3 immediately instead of waiting for the holiday season.
Now let’s play with numbers. If you make some simple assumptions and divide the total sales by units sold you’ll find the average purchase price of a copy of Halo 2 on launch day was about $52.52, implying that the ratio of standard editions sold to collector’s editions sold was approximately equal, and even leans slightly towards more collector’s editions sold. For simplicity, let’s assume the distribution was split 50/50.
Next, let’s find the launch day attach rate for Halo 2 and look at preorders. Dividing the install base by the number of units sold yields a launch day attach rate of about 12% for Halo 2. With 1.5 million preorders that means 7.5% of the install base pre-ordered and 4.5% bought without a pre-order. The existing 1 million preorders for Halo 3 means that over 11% of the Xbox 360 install base has already preordered Halo 3. That’s almost exactly 1.5 times the percentage of install base that preordered Halo 2. In a slightly more stretched assumption, I’ll assume that the 4.5% figure of launch day sales without a preorder is scaled appropriately by 1.5.
Finally, let’s smartly apply these numbers and assumptions to the Halo 3 launch, throw in a dash of speculation, and serve it up with a hint of black magic. Prediction: a significantly larger percentage of install base will purchase Halo 3 on launch day than did Halo 2. Speculation: preordering causes more expensive editions of Halo 3 to be sold than otherwise would on launch day.
Combining 11% and (4.5% x 1.5) I get about 18%. Factor in the people who will preorder between now and launch day, and the Halo 3 preorders over 1 million that I haven’t counted for simplicity’s sake, and I say about 19% of the install base will purchase Halo 3 on launch day. That equates to about 1.7 million units sold, the figure used for calculation from here on.
What is 1.7 million units sold in dollars? If we assume an even 50/50 split between the standard edition and both other special editions then that yields $51 million in sales from the standard editions. With the 50% left for limited and legendary editions I’ll grab at straws and predict an even 25/25 split. That yields $30 million in sales of limited editions and $55 million in sales of the legendary editions. The sum total: $136 million. No, I didn’t fudge the numbers to come out that close with Halo 3 ahead. I honestly didn’t know until I summed the final totals.
There’s my prediction: 1.7 million units sold for gross sales of $136 million and a new record for sales of electronic media in a single day. I’m either right or wrong, and if I’m right nobody will remember, but so go the perils of internet blogging. What say you?
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