Halo 5 Launches At #1 In UK, But Has Lowest Debut For Series Ever

Looks like franchise fatigue is starting to set in for Halo as well:

Xbox One exclusive Halo 5: Guardians topped the UK all-format charts for its debut week of release.

Impressively, Halo 5 earned 50 per cent more sales than multi-platform launch Assassin's Creed Syndicate did last week.

It's worth noting that Halo 5 launched on a Tuesday, so had three days longer on sale than Syndicate.

UK numbers company Chart-Track, which does not include download sales, did not comment on Halo 5's performance versus other numbered Halo titles, but it's fair to say Halo 5 did not match the sales performance of Halo 4. Although that isn't too surprising - Halo 4 launched in 2012 on Xbox 360, with a far larger and more mature sales base. Xbox One is just two years old.

Halo 5 also earned 50 per cent more launch week sales than last year's Halo: Master Chief Collection.

1. Halo 5: Guardians
2. Assassin's Creed Syndicate
3. FIFA 16
4. WWE 2K15
5. Minecraft: Story Mode
6. Grand Theft Auto 5
7. Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection
8. Watch Dogs
9. Lego Dimensions
10. Lego Jurassic World

To be clear, Halo 5 performed worse than not only Halo 4, as the article said, but also than Halo 3 and Halo 2 (these ones are pretty obvious, they had record breaking openings at the time), Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo Reach, and even Halo 3: ODST. Yikes.

Basically, the only Halo games Halo 5 opened better than are the remakes and Halo Wars:

Week 11, 2002] HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED (MICROSOFT) – NO DATA

[Week 46, 2004] HALO 2 (MICROSOFT) - 260,000

[Week 39, 2007] HALO 3 (MICROSOFT) - 370,000

[Week 09, 2009] HALO WARS (MICROSOFT) - 65,000

[Week 39, 2009] HALO 3: ODST (MICROSOFT) - 212,000

[Week 37, 2010] HALO: REACH (MICROSOFT) - 390,000

[Week 46, 2011] HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED ANNIVERSARY – 48,000

[Week 45, 2012] HALO 4 (MICROSOFT) - 336,000

[Week 46, 2014] HALO: THE MASTER CHIEF COLLECTION (MICROSOFT) – 96,000

[Week 44, 2015] HALO 5: GUARDIANS (MICROSOFT) - 150,000

dudebro gamers finally realise halo is no more, it took them 10 years.

MS has nothing left this was their only trojan horse, alarms going off at MS headquarters.

halo is truly the star wars of gaming LOL

Yes the install base is small but it will grow with games like this. Home run for Microsoft.

Smaller install base than the 360 and doesn't include download sales. This thread title could be a really bad ign clickbait article. Its not surprising that halo5 sales won't blow anyone away considering all the bad buzz MS and Halo have has the last 3 years.

@charizard1605: So how can you relate this to franchise fatigue if you can clearly see the install base is much smaller? It's like saying Dead Rising 3 failed against part 2 at launch.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if the Xbox One sales are indeed outpacing Xbox 360 sales like Microsoft keeps saying they are, then Halo 5, which launched at an analogous time to Halo 3, should have seen roughly similar sales. Accounting for Halo 3's enormous hype, maybe it should have seen sales that are a little lower- as opposed to under 40% of those sales.

Halo 3 and Halo 5 were selling to similar install bases, and yet Halo 5's sales fall lower than literally every other game in the franchise. That's symptomatic, whether you want to accept it or not- less people care about Halo than they used to. The brand is not what it once was. This is an issue, as Halo is the Xbox's major brand. It would be like if Maro began to lose its sheen for Nintendo.

With dudebros now mostly playing on their PS4s I think it's not surprising. Still good sale numbers.

@FoxbatAlpha: acting like halo is a new franchise this was your only golden horse ranger.

@charizard1605: All good points you make. Halo 3 hype was through the roof. I remember it for sale at gas stations. Everyone wanted in on that.

I guess we will have to see U.S. Sales to really determine how sick everyone is getting.

@charizard1605: lol true story

@charizard1605: ugh no, you can't really expect halo 5 to match one of the biggest games of all time at the peak of it's popularity

Halo 3's hype was crazy, it was on par with the launch of a Harry Potter book or something.

But yes, since the US is Halo's major audience, if Halo 5 can sustain numbers there, it'll still be able to stick the landing. I suppose years of bad press, starting with Halo 4 and then going on with the Master Chief Collection have impacted Halo's equity. Hopefully, with Halo 5 being the return to form that it is, people's faith in the series is restored, and going forward, Halo can return to the kind of healthy sales that it used to be known for.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the Xbox One outselling the 360 AND weren't Halo 1 & 2 released on a system that didn't even scrape 25 million AND wasn't Xbox an unknown brand at the time.

This is pathetic, stop damage controlling and admit it has the worst launch yet.

I never said I expect it to match it, I flat out said there should be a drop- it just shouldn't be as massive of one as we saw here.

@charizard1605: why not? After MCC and Halo 4 there has been nothing but negativity surrounding 343. I'm honestly surprised it even beat out syndicate.

Because it's still Halo. That's my point, Halo built Xbox, Halo being diminished is certainly an issue here.

I also agree with you though. I suppose years of bad press, starting with Halo 4 and then going on with the Master Chief Collection have impacted Halo's equity. Hopefully, with Halo 5 being the return to form that it is, people's faith in the series is restored, and going forward, Halo can return to the kind of healthy sales that it used to be known for.

@lglz1337: Acting? Half the time I don't think you know what you are talking about. And my Golden Horse? I'm happy with Halo 5. Cows have been getting slapped around on here since Titanfall dropped. Remember the consensus around here right before Bloodborne came? There was nothing. DriveClub and the Order made the PS4 a joke. Game droughts and delays. Don't act like Halo 5 deflated anything for Xbox owners.

We will pick this up when ND announces the inevitable delay again on UC4.

Release date announced, won't be delayed.

@charizard1605: yea and everyone is sick of Halo already. Before Halo 5, when is the last time Halo got any sort of good buzz? Reach? CE Anniversary? Halo has been a franchise people just roll their eyes at the last few years.

I'll get it after... probably Tomb Raider.

@freedomfreak: I understand. Impossibly tight pants>dudes in armor killing aliens.

@mems_1224: Priorities, man

You make me sad.

I'll get it when it's cheaper and after I finish my huge backlog of games.

I mean, lets be real. Halo is being made by some nobodies MS decided to hire to further cash in on the franchise. I remember when Halo 3 was meant to be the last one, only for it to sell like 13 million copies. They saw dollar signs. They're doing it with Gears too. I think they are on a mission to completely suck the soul out of their franchises. No Halo campaign should be shat on like Halo 5's has been, the **** do 343 think they're playing at? That said I really want this multiplayer in Halo 5 because it looks more fun than what Bungie were doing last gen multiplayer wise. The arena shooter feel and gunplay looks excellent.

Over all, Halo will continue to be popular even by name. It will sell millions upon millions still. What I'm more worried about is the future of the series' quality.

@FoxbatAlpha: you don't heff to be mad, we know halo is crap.

Like I said in my thread Halo is no longer a big deal. Everyone is waiting for Black Ops 3, Fallout 4, and Star Wars Battlefront. Uncharted 4 will sell twice as much as Halo 5.

@davem1992: So, now you're getting it again?

Alrighty, dave.

The lack of local co-op [split-screen] is certainly a negative here and a massive change from prior Halo games in the series. Halo is a popular family/teenage game and party game, so the inability to play split-screen co-op is a huge negative for a portion of its fanbase.

Uh no?

I meant Halo 5 dummy xD

@davillain-: its a very small portion though according to 343

@charizard1605: Those sales don't include digital sales. So when you say: Halo 3 was at a same time for Xbox 360 as Halo 5 is for Xbox One, you forget that Halo 3 was being sold when you couldn't download it digitally. So that's not really fair. Do we have any figure on how the digital downloads relate to the hard copies? 20%-80%, or 40%-60%?

@davem1992: Ah, missed that.

@mems_1224: You actually listen to 343?

This thread is useless without the Digital sales numbers which have been going up every year.

@freedomfreak: XD what game you playing currently?

As if the few people who buy digitally make a difference. If they did m$ would be reporting those numbers. The game is the worst selling in the series period.

@EG101: That denial.

This is the first logical counter argument I have heard. I certainly agree that they will lead to a decline in sales performance for games at retail (although I do want to point out that most healthy franchises are performing better at retail with each entry, but yeah, some of them are trending more towards digital and maybe Halo is one of them). My point is- even assuming a 67:33 split for retail digital (that seems fair, right? 1 in 3 copies was bought digitally), the sales of this game come to 225,000, which is still a massive decline.

@davem1992: Fatal Frame on WiiU.

From Ubisoft quarterly earnings:

Digital segment revenues totaled €54.1 million and represented 56.0% of total sales versus 23.2% the prior year.

So yeah pretty sure it makes a difference...

I wonder how m$ will try to spin the next NPD when they lose Halo 5 month to a PS4 that really had no major releases in October outside of the Uncharted collection. The holidays will be a bloodbath with those CoD and Star Wars marketing and bundles.

The Star Wars of vídeo games! :P

Was kinda obvious that Halo is being Halo'd out from the industry as a juggernaut. What is Xbox with Halo? A system you don't even notice being around...

Let's wait for digital sales numbers.

@Desmonic: Maybe they meant the Phantom Menace of gaming?

@davem1992: Or the Christmas special.

@FoxbatAlpha:

Install base for Halo 3 was much smaller in UK.

The Phantom Menace had a record breaking opening, and was the highest grossing movie of all time at its release.

Eh...