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Microsoft Sees $100 Million First Day for 'Halo 2' Game
Tue Nov 9, 5:23 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - First-day sales of Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) new video game "Halo 2" will reach $100 million, a senior Microsoft games executive said on Tuesday.
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"I'm calling a $100 million day on 'Halo' today," Peter Moore, a corporate vice president in Microsoft's games division, said at the Harris Nesbitt investment conference in New York.
The launch would be one of the largest in gaming history and would dwarf the first-day figures of even the biggest historical hits in the movie and music businesses.
"In the first 24 hours we'll have an opening that's (more) popular than any motion picture has ever had in history," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates (news - web sites) said at a shareholder's meeting on Tuesday.
The game, in which a super-soldier called "Master Chief" must save the earth from aliens, went on sale around the world on Tuesday, with thousands of stores opening their doors to eager customers just after midnight.
In addition to around 1.5 million pre-sold units, Moore said one retailer sold 8,500 units in the first 11 minutes of sales, while another sold 200,000 units by daybreak Tuesday.
Moore said in total, $78 million of the $100 million came from pre-sales. There are two versions of the game, the regular edition for $49.99 and a "Collector's Edition" in a custom case with a "making-of" DVD for $54.99.
Analysts expect "Halo 2" to sell a total of about 10 million units, with some projecting up to half of those sales coming in November. The original "Halo" sold 5 million units and remains the best seller on the Xbox (news - web sites) to date.
"We think that this will be the biggest launch in the history of EB, perhaps the biggest launch in the history of video games," said Jeff Griffiths, chief executive of games retailer Electronics Boutique (Nasdaq:ELBO - news), at the Harris Nesbitt conference. (Additional reporting by Franklin Paul in New York)
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