Halo 3: saviour of the Xbox 360, too?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 22 September 2007 10:58

Opinion and Analysis

Halo 3 is already, thanks to the fantastic pre-sales, a smash-hit blockbuster success, even before it has gone on sale. Anticipation for Halo 3 is so hot that not only have queues already formed a couple of weeks before the on-sale date, but Xbox 360 owners have risked their Xbox Live subscription and being banned for life by downloading and trying a pirate copy of Halo 3 which only works with modded Xbox 360s.

Halo 3 is expected to sell off the charts, and generating a lot of new Xbox 360 sales, all by itself. Provided the Xbox 360 has a good lineup of other titles for Christmas/holiday season, something we’ve already seen with BioShock, Microsoft’s Halo 3 momentum for the Xbox 360 can really power through and rack up solid sales, putting in a solid fight against the Nintendo Wii for the number 1 spot, and keeping the PS3 in spot 3 for as long as possible.

As far as I’m aware, the really huge Nintendo Wii titles are still to come in time for the end of year battle with Microsoft and Sony, while the Tokyo Game Show saw Sony express the view that they’d slipped up in emphasising the PS3’s gaming credentials and wouldn’t make the same mistake this Christmas/holiday season.

There’s going to be some surprises this year, as each console maker tries to out-do the other with exclusive games, new or updated features through firmware updates, online capabilities and downloadable games, accessories, TV recording and more.

The Halo 3 onslaught is just the start of it – we still haven’t truly seen the marketing avalanche to come from Nintendo and Sony in response – but it’s surely coming soon.

There will be some very seductive and sophisticated gaming experiences on offer from all three contenders, leading anyone wanting to try them all facing the prospect of a very big credit card bill.

So, given that most people won’t buy all three consoles, although a fair number would likely have two, or a current and older model, which console will sell the most this holiday season?

It’s the eternal question – and the quality of the gaming hardware on offer has never been better nor more advanced, making things that much harder this time around to predict.

Halo 3 is vitally important to Xbox 360 sales and keeping it as the strongest next-gen console with the most breadth and depth to its capabilities and experiences, and will ensure the user base grows strongly, giving software manufacturers more incentive than ever to keep on creating new games and experiences for Xbox 360 owners to buy, with the quality of the software paramount to staying in business.

All three consoles will do well this holiday season and will register strong sales. With Halo 3, Microsoft’s making absolutely sure that the Xbox 360’s end-of-year campaign goes off with a huge bang.