Easily the most anticipated game of 2007 for Xbox 360 owners is the final installment of the groundbreaking Halo series. Officially released this Tuesday, Halo 3 is expected to be the highest-selling game in history with pre-sales shattering previous pre-sale records for any game.
And with the launch of Halo 3 this Tuesday came massive launch parties, most notably in New York City where crowds of hundreds lined up outside a 44th Ave. Best Buy, where they started forming since early Monday eagerly awaiting the strike of 12:01 am Tuesday morning.
Gamers celebrated in Toronto as well, as part of an all-night launch party outside the Bay and Dundas Best Buy, which included all-night tournaments and a long first-come-first-serve lineup in front of the store.
Brilliant promotion by Microsoft turned the simple release date of Halo 3 into a major event. Hummers bearing Halo 3 designs could be seen circling the block. Pontiac designed a special Halo 3-themed G6 GXP street car for a contest giveaway. Even Mountain Dew is riding the Halo bandwagon with their own Halo 3 brand drink they’re calling Game Fuel.
Since being made available to pre-order, Halo 3 has become the fastest-selling pre-ordered game in history with over a million sold. Microsoft anticipated the game’s official release would shatter one-day entertainment sales on September 25, making US$155 million in 24 hours.
In fact, Microsoft underestimated the sales a tad as Halo 3 earned more than US$170 million within its first 24 hours of release. It broke the record for most money earned in a day by an entertainment product, beating the opening-day grossing of the film Spiderman 3. More than 1.4 million people have gone online to play the title since its launch and over 4 million games were played in total online.
Microsoft is hoping the release of Halo 3 will boost sales of the Xbox 360, which has yet to see any meaningful profitable return since its release a year ago.
Halo 3 developers, Bungie Software have done a clever job with the plot, paralleling it with issues the world is currently facing with terrorism, albeit on a more far-fetched scale. As a player, you take on the role of a soldier in a war to fight religious aliens who are on a mission to attack Earth. They believe destroying our planet will take them on a great journey to heaven. You have to stop them.
But the appeal the Halo series has had with both hardcore and casual gamers isn’t really about the storyline. It’s the way the game has revolutionized multiplayer online gaming, and has changed the entertainment industry altogether.
Halo 3 is much more than a video game. It has become part of a cultural phenomenon that is changing how people entertain themselves.
