On the launch of halo 3 Some game enthusiasts lined up before dawn at a Best Buy store on New York's Fifth Avenue to grab the halo 3 copy. some retailer's offer to let them pay for a copy of the game and pick it up at midnight or the next day.What had been a only a modest gathering earlier in the day had swelled to a crowd of about 500 people that cheered as buyers entered the store, resembling other big consumer debuts this year, such as the last "Harry Potter" book and Apple's iPhone.
"This is a critical holiday in terms of winning the next-generation console fight versus our competition and nobody has anything to go up and match 'Halo'," Shane Kim, vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, told Reuters Television.
Microsoft is backing the game with midnight sales events at some 10,000 retailers across the United States.
while Microsoft expects initial demand to surpass that for 2004's "Halo 2", which racked up $125 million in its first 24 hours.
At a Best Buy near Microsoft headquarters outside Seattle, company founder Bill Gates was cheered by a crowd of more than 500 people when he emerged from the store to shake hands.
Gates personally sold and autographed the first copy to Ritesh David, a 17-year-old who was stunned to find himself being served by the richest man in America.
The first two "Halo" games have sold a combined 15 million copies and cemented Microsoft as a serious player in a video game industry that was dominated by Sony's PlayStation 2.
Everyone knows Microsoft's original Xbox was largely a defensive move by Microsoft against the original Sony PlayStation, which had become so big in the 1990s that it threatened the future of Windows PC gaming. If Sony were to continue unchecked in games console development, Microsoft feared it may lose significant PC sales supported by gaming.
The PS2 was able to maintain a clear lead, having sold 111 million units between 2000 and 2006, compared to only 24 million for the Xbox, and 21 million for the failed GameCube.
Do you think microsoft will win this battle with industry player sony with its new move halo 3 which is going to upraise the xbox360 sale???
"This is a critical holiday in terms of winning the next-generation console fight versus our competition and nobody has anything to go up and match 'Halo'," Shane Kim, vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, told Reuters Television.
Microsoft is backing the game with midnight sales events at some 10,000 retailers across the United States.
while Microsoft expects initial demand to surpass that for 2004's "Halo 2", which racked up $125 million in its first 24 hours.
At a Best Buy near Microsoft headquarters outside Seattle, company founder Bill Gates was cheered by a crowd of more than 500 people when he emerged from the store to shake hands.
Gates personally sold and autographed the first copy to Ritesh David, a 17-year-old who was stunned to find himself being served by the richest man in America.
The first two "Halo" games have sold a combined 15 million copies and cemented Microsoft as a serious player in a video game industry that was dominated by Sony's PlayStation 2.
Everyone knows Microsoft's original Xbox was largely a defensive move by Microsoft against the original Sony PlayStation, which had become so big in the 1990s that it threatened the future of Windows PC gaming. If Sony were to continue unchecked in games console development, Microsoft feared it may lose significant PC sales supported by gaming.
The PS2 was able to maintain a clear lead, having sold 111 million units between 2000 and 2006, compared to only 24 million for the Xbox, and 21 million for the failed GameCube.
Do you think microsoft will win this battle with industry player sony with its new move halo 3 which is going to upraise the xbox360 sale???
