In what counts as the least surprising news of the week, Microsoft has announced that Halo 5: Guardians is the biggest and most successful launch in the history of the Halo franchise. The game is also the fastest selling Xbox One game since that console launched to date. The record numbers are thanks to more than $400 million in global sales in its first week on the market. While global sales numbers don’t indicate just how badly the game beat other titles in that week, we knew it had reached the top of the UK sales charts just days after it hit the market.
Microsoft says fans have already played more than 21 million hours of gameplay already and over 12 million hours of the campaign mode alone. The game also set the Guinness book of world records for most watched video game launch broadcast. The game set a rather impressive precedent with more than 330,000 unique streams on the evening of the broadcast. This resulted in a spike in digital sales of the game, and that led to it becoming the best-selling digital game ever in the Xbox Store for an opening week.
Since it was officially announced, there has been very little doubt as to just how excited fans of the series have been about continuing the series. Those who weren’t neccesarily fans of the series have had praise for the game as well. These days, it’s just a matter of seeing how long Halo 5: Guardians can keep the momentum as it makes a serious challenge for best selling game ever.
