In the battle of the biggest games involving a colon in the title, which also happen to be the biggest games of the season, Xbox UK boss Stephen McGill is pulling no punches:
More than 34 million people have bought [a Halo game] and those people are going to want to play Halo: Reach. We're going to do incredibly well,"
For those of you counting, it took CoD: Modern Warfare 2 five months to sell just under 10 million copies in the U.S. To insinuate that Halo: Reach will move 34 million copies is akin to saying that your grandma will be playing it, which aside from being absurdly awesome, is unlikely.
Halo: Reach is already receiving glowing reviews, the likes of which can be seen here. CoD: Back Ops is highly anticipated as well, but Treyarch developed games don't garner the same praise as those with the Infinity Ward logo.
While Halo: Reach will offer co-op gamers something lacking in CoD: Black Ops (Ahem, co-op Campaign. I mean come on, the first Halo had a co-op campaign and that game was released almost a decade ago. Seriously. There will be kids killing you in multiplayer who weren't even born when the first Halo was released.), the modern warfare shooter has the luxury of being released on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. That almost doubles the amount of potential sales.
Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Morgan analyst told Joystiq.com:
I think Halo could penetrate 25 percent of the Xbox 360 installed base, putting it on par with the last four GTA games, but CoD has an addressable market that is 50 percent bigger, so it only needs 18 percent penetration.
Michael Pachter is the same guy who said that Borderlands, a Co-Optimus favorite, was "sent to die," last year, so who knows if we should take market penetration predictions from him. Hilarious quotes aside, it only stands to reason that CoD: Black Ops will do at least as well as Halo: Reach this holiday season.
What will you be picking up? Or more accurately, which family member will you not be getting gifts for so you can satiate your own video game lust?
Source: Joystiq.com