PREVIEW: Halo 3 set for biggest pay day in entertainment history

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Can the launch of a video-game about a super-soldier saving humanity from a bunch of evil aliens really be called historic?

If sales projections are correct for Halo 3, which launches at midnight Tuesday in the US, the answer is a clear yes.


The video game is expected to bring in 150 million dollars in its first day of sales, easily beating all other first-day receipts for other video games and movies. "Spider-Man 3" for instance broke box-office records last May, but it took three days to earn 151 million dollars at theatres.

David N. is one of those driving Halo's stellar figures. He looked perfectly healthy over the weekend but could already tell that he was going to be too sick on Tuesday to go to his job at a land surveyors.

"I call it Halo fever, and believe me it's going to be an epidemic," said the 26-year-old. "People loved playing the previous two versions, and now with all the advances in technology we expect Halo 3 to be something really special."

More than 15 million copies of the first two titles in the series have been sold. Across the US over 10,000 stores are opening their doors in a bid to fill more than a million pre-orders for the game, which is seen as Microsoft's key weapon in the console wars with Sony and Nintendo. By the end of the week the game will be on sale in 37 countries.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 has been struggling to compete with its rivals but the new game could easily become a "killer application" that drives sales of the console over the crucial holiday season, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research.

"This is going to be a monster hit for Microsoft and it's the type of game that will sell systems, probably a lot of them," Gartenberg said.

"Halo 3 has been one of the most anticipated titles in the history of gaming and Microsoft and Bungie delivered well. I believe they've met expectations and the result is it's likely to also become one of the best selling titles in the history of gaming as well."

So what is everyone getting so excited about?

The main attractions of the earlier Halo versions largely revolved around the ability to hook the game up to the internet and play against other people. It didn't hurt that the game was built around a compelling story line, had great weapons and graphics and could be played simultaneously by up to four people on the same machine.

Early reviews of the new version say that Halo 3 continues the evolution of that game, with better graphics, newer weapons and a satisfying narrative.

But world-changing it is not.

"Halo 3 is some pretty good stuff," concluded Mike Musgrove, the IT blogger of the Washington Post, who gathered a band of Halo fans at his house over the weekend to try the game out. "If you liked the first two, you'll like this one. Gotta say, though - it's hard for any game to live up to all the hype this one has gotten."

Those kind of reviews will be good enough for Microsoft. The game may sell as many as 10 million copies at an average retail price of 70 dollars for a total of 700 million dollars in sales, Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets told the Los Angeles Times. Because the game only cost 60 million dollars to make Microsoft can expect a profit of 560 million dollars on the game.

The game is expected to spur people to buy Microsoft's Xbox 360 console and drive subscriptions to the company's online game service.

Who knows, it might even end up justifying the glowing prognosis given by Wired Magazine, the style bible of geekdom.

Wired called it "a cultural touchstone" and "a Star Wars for the thumb stick generation." dpa ag pr