>I'll be curious to see if and by how much HL2 beats Halo2 sales figures. >I have fun playing Halo2 but nothing like playing a nice FPS on PC and >all the physics in HL2 should make hl2 a better game.
I think HL2 will be huge, but I doubt it'll come near Halo 2 for several reasons. The cost of ownership is larger: you need a PC and a realtively newish one. For that reason you won't see any causual gamers picking up HL2 right away. The hard core have it already (via steam) and slightly less hardcaore will get it tomorrow - but the casual gamer (and the poor hardcore gamer) will wait for reviews to see how much they'll have to upgrade their system. ;^) Halo is a GREAT game, no doubt - but it's a great game on a system sorely lacking great games (especailly great exclusives). The question is was "Halo" the top selling XBox for three years because it was so good or because there was little else to buy? In other words I would have to guess that a significant percentage of XBox owners own Halo and bought (or will buy) Halo 2. Perhaps as high as 90% of them in the end. For systems with larger libraries (PS2 and GBA, for example) a game doesn't sell to that kind of percentage no matter how great it is. There's just a lot more competition for the market. In any genre there may actually be several games ranked as "the best". Look at this year for platformers on PS2: you have three games "Jak3", "Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando" and "Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves" all getting "10s" and "Five Star" reviews - they are ALL great games. Only a few hard core fans (like me) will end up buying them all immediately. Microsoft knows all of this: which is exactly why they promoted (and continue to promote) the hell out of Halo 2. They can gauge it's impact in dollars and sales-to-systems very easily. I think that Half-Life will be a huge success, but it's success is going to be more complicated to track. It will be a huge financial win for Valve, of course. It's the first game that looks to succeed with an online distribution model. It will spark sales of upgrades (video cards, processers, etc) for the next 12 months. The engine should be a huge source (no pun intended) of income in licensing fees and so forth. In the end HL2 is much bigger than the game itself. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Special thanks to the CF Community Suite Gold Sponsor - CFHosting.net http://www.cfhosting.net Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:135973 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
