Lazard: Halo 3 To Quickly Push $200m In Sales


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Lazard: Halo 3 To Quickly Push $200m In Sales

Following a meeting with Microsoft Xbox execs, Lazard analyst Colin Sebastian has estimated Halo 3 sales could quickly reach $200 million in "one of the largest and most successful product launches in digital entertainment."

Sebastian says the launch prediction is "based on our conversations with Xbox management as well as our own industry checks," with "significant preorders and broad consumer anticipation" of the Xbox 360 title.

"In addition," he said, "we expect Halo 3 to drive increasing Xbox 360 hardware sell-through, supported by the August price cuts. We note that incremental retail foot traffic resulting from the Halo 3 launch benefits video game specialty retailer GameStop."

However, he notes that even if Sony lower the price on the PS2 or introduce a new lower-priced PS3, he expects Microsoft will hold steady with its own price, but adds "we do not rule out the possibility of other promotional activities into the holiday period as Microsoft seeks to take full advantage of Halo 3 momentum."

Source: Gamasutra

To increase the momentum, the X360 needs another 50$ price cut.

Lowering the prices to:

Core: 220$ or simply make it disapear

Premium: 300$

Elite: 350$

Those should be the right prices. Making the Core reach the soccer moms that want to buy a cheap console to their kids and the others to the hardcore market, delivering a fantastic console for much less than its direct competitor.

Lazard: Halo 3 To Quickly Push $200m In Sales

Following a meeting with Microsoft Xbox execs, Lazard analyst Colin Sebastian has estimated Halo 3 sales could quickly reach $200 million in "one of the largest and most successful product launches in digital entertainment."

Anyone else curious as to how he figured that one out. I don't know, but it just seems to me that maybe based on Halo 2's launch, plus Halo 2's ending, we get an even better launch than the previous most successful digital entertainment launch ever.

Took him long enough to figure that one out.

-Spenser

Anyone else curious as to how he figured that one out. I don't know, but it just seems to me that maybe based on Halo 2's launch, plus Halo 2's ending, we get an even better launch than the previous most successful digital entertainment launch ever.

Took him long enough to figure that one out.

-Spenser

Actually all he really needed is how many pre-orders were taken and then multiply everything my its corresponding pre-order. Legendary: $130 Collectors: $70 Regular: $60

When working at GameStop you can see how many pre-orders are on a particular item in the area so corporate has all the numbers. Of course this is assuming everyone picks up their pre-order within a week or so. :)

To increase the momentum, the X360 needs another 50$ price cut.

Lowering the prices to:

Core: 220$ or simply make it disapear

Premium: 300$

Elite: 350$

Those should be the right prices. Making the Core reach the soccer moms that want to buy a cheap console to their kids and the others to the hardcore market, delivering a fantastic console for much less than its direct competitor.

I can definetly see another $50 price drop happening within the next 6 months...but more realistically I think Late Oct early November to get the upperhand on the PS3 over Xmas and to make price an almost non issue when put next to the Wii.

Alternatively a 360 Pack where halo is included for the same price or just a bit more than one without halo.

Either one of the above should be a good boost over xmas, help boost both hardware and halo sales (not that halo needs it) and with a September launch MS still has about a month or so until they'd have to implement those above offers so they still get money from the early takers.

As for the core...I'd like to see it go so that HD's can be more widely used by game developers but I don't think removing it is necessarily the best decision marketing wise since it does server as a very good entry point to those who would otherwise buy a Wii based on price. If I was MS I'd keep the Core until after Xmas and possibly dump it then, although at 2 years into the consoles life I guess they can just as easily keep it now anyway. An issue in my eye is the more consoles without HD's there are the harder it is for developers to justify making games that require a HD and also the harder it is for MS to reach consumers with services that require storage (such as video dloads or marketplace in general). Realistically they should never have shipped a console without the storage, what with live being so big on their list of things they wanted to do, but it's to late now.

I also would suspect that before Xmas there will be new live content out there and that it wont take too long for maps to start rolling out. They finished Halo 3 with alot less presure timewise than Halo 2 if what we heard is to be believed and Live is a much bigger factor than it was earlier so I can see at least one pre Xmas addon being released.

Edited by Smigit
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