Halo 3: Factoid Burst

Halo 3: Factoid Burst

September 19, 2007, 1:20 pm
Filed under: Gaming, Halo, Halo 3, News

It’s nearly here and there’s much to be done in preparation for the big day. But before we begin, it’s time for some facts. How many? Ummm… pretty much all of ’em.

The Numbers

• “Halo®” and “Halo 2” have sold more than 14.8 million copies worldwide (Xbox® and PC versions). It’s expected that by the end of the year fans will have spent more than $1 billion on the “Halo” franchise.
• The “Halo 2” release on Nov. 9, 2004, set entertainment history by generating $125 million in U.S. sales in its first 24 hours. The launch of “Halo 3” on Sept. 25, 2007, is expected to once again set entertainment sales records by selling more in the U.S. on day one than any movie in history (the current record is held by “Spider-Man 3” at $151 million) and selling more in its first week than any album.
• “Halo 3” has reached over 1 million presells in the United States alone in late July, two months before the launch.
• More than 10,000 retail stores across the United States will be open at midnight on Sept. 25 to ensure that fans receive “Halo 3” hot off the shelves. Managers at workplaces worldwide expect a higher than usual number of absentees in the days following the launch.

The Xbox LIVE Numbers

• The “Halo 3” multiplayer beta, which ran for three weeks in May 2007, attracted more than 820,000 unique participants from 25 countries around the world and became the biggest console beta of all time.
• Participants in the multiplayer beta logged more than 12 million hours of online gameplay. That’s the equivalent of 1,400 years of continuous play by a single person. They downloaded more than 350 terabytes of data, equivalent to more than 82 million digital song downloads with an average size of 4 MB.
• Of the 7 million members on Xbox LIVE®, the largest social network on TV, more than 5.5 million have played “Halo 2.”
• Nearly three years after the release of “Halo 2,” more than 300,000 unique gamers continue to log on to Xbox LIVE every day to play it.

The Facts

• Master Chief, the hero character of the “Halo” franchise, is one of the most recognizable characters in video games. He recently joined heroes of television and film as the first videogame character to be immortalized in Madame Tussauds’ 250-year history.
• “Halo 3” will be released around the globe as follows:
  • Sept. 25: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States
  • Sept. 26: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom
  • Sept. 27: Japan
• Owing to its worldwide popularity, “Halo 3” will be available in 17 languages: English, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Finnish, French, Italian, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Slovak, Spanish (Iberian and Latin American), Swedish and Traditional Chinese.
• “Halo 3” has more audio than 20 feature films combined, including the following:
  • 39,000 lines of dialogue
  • 13,000 sound effects
  • Music totaling six hours of continuous play
• The music of the “Halo” series has garnered numerous audio awards around the world, including the 2004 Console Game of the Year from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, the Game Developers Choice Awards and Rolling Stone magazine’s award for best game soundtrack.
• Inspiration for the environments in “Halo 3”came from a variety of sources, such as French cathedrals Chartres, Metz and Reims; a Wallace Stevens poem titled “The Snow Man”; and the sketches and watercolors of artist David Roberts.
• “Halo 3” development began in 2004, and the title took 120 full-time employees (double the number that developed “Halo 2”) and an army of contractors over 1 million person-hours to create. The Bungie Studios team spans a broad range of talent, including architects, engineers, journalists, artists and videographers.
• The Bungie Studios team consumed more than 20,000 pounds of pizza, 24,000 gallons of soda and more than a half ton of bananas during the three years it took to develop “Halo 3.”

The Partners

• The “Halo” franchise has spawned numerous licensed products such as action figures, soundtracks, graphic novels, collectible figurines, apparel, costumes and a comic book series. The licensed merchandise for “Halo” has brought in three times more revenue than all merchandise sold to date for the Harry Potter franchise.
• “The Official Halo 2 Guide: Strategy Evolved” had day-one sell-through of 270,000 copies, the second-best launch day for Random House Inc. next to Bill Clinton’s “My Life.”
• Bungie’s “Halo Graphic Novel” was one of Marvel Comic’s top-selling graphic novels in 2006 — amongst a field of “Amazing Spider-Man,” “X-Men” and a number of other Marvel properties.
• Two of the four “Halo” novels made the New York Times’ best-seller list, and are the top-selling video game novels of all time.
• Academy Award-winning director, screenwriter and producer Peter Jackson has partnered with Bungie Studios to extend the “Halo” franchise by co-writing, co-designing and co-producing an interactive entertainment experience exclusively for Xbox 360.

The Awards

• The “Halo” franchise has received critical acclaim worldwide. “Halo,” “Halo 2” and “Halo 3” have received more than 235 awards from media and industry organizations in the United States alone.

Impressive eh? Props to Evil Avatar for the heads up.

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