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The Halo 3 Xbox 360 video game brought in $170 million ($227 million) in sales on its first day in US stores, Microsoft said.
That met Microsoft's goal of making the game the biggest entertainment release in history, surpassing Spider-Man 3 and the final Harry Potter novel, the company said. More than 1.7 million copies of Halo 3 were pre-ordered.
Microsoft is relying on Halo 3, to help make its Xbox business profitable this fiscal year for the first time. The game, which pits a genetically engineered soldier against an alien race bent on destroying humankind, may sell as many as six million copies this Christmas, according to Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst in Los Angeles.
Halo 3 has attracted 1.39 million online players in the past 24 hours, according to the website of Microsoft's Bungie Studios, the game's creator.
The game costs $59 to $129. The previous instalment, the best-selling Xbox game ever, took in $125 million on its first day in November 2004.
The release of Halo 3 was marred by reports that special-edition packaging had scratched some game discs.
Microsoft said yesterday that the damaged discs represented a small percentage of the total sales and offered replacements.
Microsoft is looking to Halo 3 to bolster sales of the Xbox 360 console, which has lagged behind Nintendo Co's Wii in the US every month since the Wii was released, according to Port Washington, New York-based NPD Group Inc. From March until August, Nintendo sold 85 per cent more Wii machines, NPD said.
That means the Wii will probably pass the Xbox 360 as the best-selling console this year, Pachter said.
Microsoft shares fell 6 cents to $29.50 at 4 pm New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. The stock has dropped 12 per cent this year.
The firm has pledged to turn a profit in its Xbox division this financial year, following $7 billion in losses since the Xbox console debuted in 2001. Xbox accounted for 12 per cent of Microsoft's $51.1 billion in sales last year.
- Bloomberg
