Well its over when its over. It is still a week, and preorders normally get high the last week. And who knows when microsoft said that. But yes, it is not looking good at the moment, the stock reflex this. Actually i found a news about halo fever, didn't i posted it? Doesn't seem so:
Halo Fever (Ireland) Silicon Republic "Michael Finucane, commercial director of Irish games chain Gamestop said that they were experiencing “fever pitch” at the moment, with the pre-orders for the much anticipated game running at double the rate of Halo 2 which debuted three years ago.
The ‘Legendary’, or collectors’ edition of Halo 3 is expected to be sold out by the time the game launches next week, while Irish retailers say that this game has the fastest selling pre-orders in videogame history.
Gamestop will have 13 stores opening at midnight and will be holding a Halo party at its newest store in Stephen’s Green shopping centre as well as at its store in Henry Street and is expecting a big crowd."
You got to love google news, you find nearly everything :o)
Note that they are saying "1.25 million pre-orders globally". Halo 2 hit 1.5 million in the US alone. Microsoft has previous announced 1 million pre-orders in the US.
So we can extrapolate from this that Halo 3 has received probably between 1 and 1.15 million pre-orders in the US (note that 2/3rds of 360s are in N.America). That's quite a drop from the number for Halo 2 (25%).
"Gamers keen to get their hands on a copy of the game will be able to at midnight, when over 1,000 shops across the UK will open their doors for launch-night events. Microsoft is reporting that over 1.25 million pre-orders have been received for Halo 3 globally, and the company is aiming to ensure that there are plenty of copies around--it says that production of the discs has reached 81 copies per second."
@Laoldar, The thing is if Halo 3 is currently closing in on a # like 1.25, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, ... they will likely wait until it reaches that # and report it. Unless they figure if its not going to eclipse 1.5, we don't want to report it. I wouldn't think it would get lost given the affect it would have among the internet community.
Costco, 7-11, etc are offering it for preorder, unheard of things. It's only not surprising when we look at the installed base of the 360 compared to XB1 when Halo 2 released.
MS announced the Halo 2 pre-orders several weeks before. I would think that they wouldn't wait to put out a release on that because it'll just get lost in the rest of the release hype.
Halo 3 was the first game I've seen offered for pre-order at my local Canadian Wal Mart (I see they're now also taking pre-orders for Assassin's Creed), so it's surprising if this new source of pre-orders doesn't push them above 1.5 million.
@Laoldar, That is correct 10,000 at Midnight. Either it is not reaching 1.5 million in preorders or MS is waiting to announce what it has/did reach between now and the day it launches, whether that be more or less than Halo 2's 1.5 mil.
I think most people buying the game will have preordered it given the massive advertising the past few months & the great deals that stores are giving for preordering. Halo 2 also saw most of its sales come from preorders (1.5 million [3 weeks before launch] compared to 2.4 million total in the 1st 24 hours). So preorders for Halo 2 made up easily over 63% of Halo 2 sales on day 1.
For what it's worth, it doesn't seem to have reached the pre-order numbers for Halo 2. When Halo 2 reached 1.5 million pre-orders (about 3 weeks before release) Microsoft put out a press release about it having broken records...so far we've only seen them talk about 1 million pre-orders for Halo 3.
This could be an indication that fewer copies will move during launch week than Halo 2's launch. However some reports have said over 10,000 retailers in the US will have midnight openings for Halo 3...the only report I can find for Halo 2 was fewer than 6500 stores, so it will be interesting to see how first day sales go.
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Well its over when its over. It is still a week, and preorders normally get high the last week. And who knows when microsoft said that. But yes, it is not looking good at the moment, the stock reflex this.
Actually i found a news about halo fever, didn't i posted it? Doesn't seem so:
Halo Fever (Ireland) Silicon Republic
"Michael Finucane, commercial director of Irish games chain Gamestop said that they were experiencing “fever pitch” at the moment, with the pre-orders for the much anticipated game running at double the rate of Halo 2 which debuted three years ago.
The ‘Legendary’, or collectors’ edition of Halo 3 is expected to be sold out by the time the game launches next week, while Irish retailers say that this game has the fastest selling pre-orders in videogame history.
Gamestop will have 13 stores opening at midnight and will be holding a Halo party at its newest store in Stephen’s Green shopping centre as well as at its store in Henry Street and is expecting a big crowd."
You got to love google news, you find nearly everything :o)