Microsoft have proudly revealed that their latest title in their flagship franchise, Halo 5: Guardians has generated a total of more than $400 million in global sales during its first week on the market. The release drives the total Halo franchise revenue to over $5 billion. The $400 million figure given by Microsoft includes both games and hardware sales.
On top of that, Halo 5: Guardians has become the fastest selling Xbox One exclusive so far, while it also enjoyed the highest launch week attach rate (game sold along with console) for any first-party Xbox One game. It goes without saying that all this means that Halo 5: Guardians was the most played Xbox One game on Xbox Live during its launch week. According to a statement from Microsoft, fans have already pumped an incredible amount of total playtime into it:
“Fans have logged more than 21 million hours of total gameplay, including 12 million hours in campaign mode alone. The widely praised multiplayer modes have also led to 9 million total hours played with nearly 7 million multiplayer matches played across Arena and the all-new Warzone mode. In addition, Halo fans are taking to the new Requisition System in a big way, with over 45 million REQ Packs acquired, totaling more than 568 million REQ Cards.”
Interestingly, Halo 5 was also the “best-selling digital game ever” through the Xbox Store during its launch week. It’s clear that many players pounced on the opportunity to pre-load the huge title and its patches, so they could immediately jump in to finish the fight (again) as soon as the game launched at midnight on October 27.
Halo 5: Guardian‘s launch is just the start of the planned trajectory for the series. Microsoft has announced plans to launch more than 15 free DLC maps by summer 2016, and the Halo World Championship begins later this year. Also, 343 Industries has already begun work on Halo 6, the final title in the Reclaimer trilogy, so there will certainly be no shortage of Master Chief in the years to come.
