14 DAY TRIAL // This week's forecasts are coming straight from Goldman-Sach's industry watchers, regarding Halo 3, Bungie's highly anticipated first-person shooter and the impact it will have on Microsoft's Xbox 360 (all SKUs) when it's released. The forecast looks good, but are the numbers accurate...?
Goldman-Sach's industry watchers say that they are expecting Halo 3 to contribute about $170 million in revenue for the quarter, as Gamespot reports, with more than 4.2 million copies having already shipped to retailers. Remember news about Halo 3 pre-orders having reached four million? That's right, 200k more in less than two weeks. If things keep going like this, the game may very well become the most pre-ordered video game of all times.
Now, if we're to go by the analysts' projections of an installed user base of 13.2 million by September this year, that means that one copy for every three Xbox 360s in the world has been sold. Beat that Rockstar!
However, Goldman-Sach's predictions of Microsoft reaching the $170 million figure with Halo 3 may very well be low by as much as $50 million, if they haven't predicted the user-base correctly. Wow, that means that the number of Halo fans could vary between 7 million and 13 million. If this turns out to be true, Goldman-Sach may ruin their reputation.
But the numbers say it all. The fact that 4.2 million copies of Halo 3 have already been pre-ordered means that there are a lot more out there who haven't decided yet, who couldn't get the money or didn't have time to do it, or who have awful parents telling them that video games are no good, locking them up in their rooms throwing books at them. No, wait, those ones can't possibly be the owners of an Xbox 360. I know that kind of parents. They'd hammer down a Tetris game.
We'll keep you updated as the events unfold. By the way, did you order yours yet?