Day One Sales of Halo3

I know this is going to be a huge deal, but I think we're getting carried away...

From XBox360fanboy.com :

Colin Sebastian, a semi super duper smart analyst from Lazard Capital Markets, is predicting that Halo 3 will make upwards of $200 million rather quickly, becoming one of the largest product launches ever. And even though Sebastian doesn't state a time frame for his Halo 3 $200 million in sales, we're guessing he's directly comparing his estimate to Halo 2's $125 million first day sales record. So, in comparison to Halo 2's numbers, it's very likely that the $200 million mark will be attainable as we can guarantee sales to be very, very good. Sebastian also goes on to mention that the million plus Halo 3 pre-orders coupled with Microsoft's marketing efforts will help in reaching the $200 million milestone and move some Xbox 360 hardware. Analysts ... you gotta love 'em.

My comment :

ok let's do some math :

US$200M / US$60 a pop = 3.33M copies sold.

1.0M preorders already accounted for so that leaves 2.3M that would have to sell on day one.  How many retail outlets are selling this game?  Every US Wal-Mart, Target, Gamestop, EB Games, Best Buy, Circuit City among other places.

Let's say Wal-Mart stocks it in 2500 stores, Target 1100, Best Buy 1400, Circuit City 600, Gamestop 4500 (store counts per Wikipedia)

ok, so at LEAST 2500+1100+1400+600+4500 locations in the US will have copies of Halo 3 on day 1.

That's about 10,000 retail outlets.

2.3M / 10,000 = 230 copies per location.

that's aggressive to say the least,

but i acknowledge the number of retail outlets may be understated by as much as half,

so cut the 230 per store to 115 per store - that's still a really agressive number ON TOP of all the preorders for a single day.

just to provide perspective, halo2 was $125M at a time when games cost $50.

That's 125M / 50 = 2.5M copies so it's not out of the question but it's still a massive jump of units sold.  (3.3M up from 2.5M is a 33% increase)

couple that with this being less than 2 years after console launch as opposed to Halo 2's 3 years after console launch and the higher console price at the time of game release and I just don't see this $200M thing happening.