Halo 3, XBox and Technical Communication? (Part 1)

Halo 3 was released in September with worldwide sensation.

This is important to understand: Halo 3 has outsold Star Wars. And Spiderman 3. And any other movie in history.

It is the single week record holder for any form of entertainment, period.

Not to mention, doing its part in improving Microsoft’s gaming platform sales:

Sales of the Xbox 360 console saw a sharp increase, more than doubling compared to the weekly average before the launch of Halo 3.

Even the Army uses the XBox handheld controller for their house-clearing robot. So it’s safe to say that XBox has penetrated many diverse markets. I’ve got some raw data from Microsoft about their game market penetration, but I’m talking about across complete Consumer Electronic channels more than the game aspect.

From InformationWeek:

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s Halo 3 racked up $170 million in sales on its first day of availability, making it the hottest-selling title in video game history.

From XBox / Microsoft: Biggest Entertainment Launch in History

To date, over 20 million copies of the games in the Halo trilogy have been sold worldwide. The record week one sales comes on the heels of the previously announced $170 million in sales in the U.S. within the first 24 hours of the game’s release, which marked not just the biggest videogame launch, but the biggest entertainment launch in history.

The Xbox 360 title beat previous U.S. sales records set by blockbuster openings for entertainment events like the release of Spider-Man 3 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

How many people play XBox?

According to their figures, Microsoft says that 11 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold. So, for a game retailing at $60 the math is pretty simple that just about everyone owning an XBox 360 bought a copy of Halo 3.

How many people are in this core group? from Microsoft – http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/14595/Xbox-360-and-Xbox-Live-Facts-and-Stats/

Faster than expected, Xbox LIVE has eclipsed the 7 million member milestone and is on track to reach 10 million members by the end of June 2008. In fact, in the last year we’ve added a new Xbox LIVE member every 8 seconds.

Where does the TechComm come in?

eLearning and Documentation. You know it, love it and live it. I’ll explain how they converge.