It's only been a week since "Halo 5: Guardians" was released, but it has already made history and broken records.
Xbox Wire reported that global sales for "Halo 5: Guardians" hit $400 million on its launch, making it the "fastest-selling Xbox One exclusive game to-date." The game also broke the record for total gameplay hours with fans clocking 21 million hours of play time for week one alone.
Xbox Wire additionally reported that the game was also entered into the Guinness World Records for having the "most watched video game launch broadcast" with over 330,000 unique streams. View count for the launch's video also rose to 5.5 million in the first week. Guinness World Records confirmed that the streamed "Halo" event was "the first of such magnitude."
"The success of Halo 5: Guardians is a testament to the innovative work from the entire team at 343 Industries to bring this installment to Xbox One and the incredible community of fans who have come to love the story, characters and gameplay central to the franchise," said Xbox head Phil Spencer per IGN. "The game represents all the possibilities of Xbox One and has earned its place as the anchor title in the greatest holiday games lineup in Xbox history."
Forbes reported that last year's launch of "Halo 4" earned over $300 million in its first week and this latest news is hardly surprising. However, the figures doesn't account for the hardware/games bundle breakdown just yet.
Eurogamer reported that the success of "Halo 5" is more than just sales as it involves micro-transactions within the game and the endurance of the multiplayer genre. Avid gamers are especially pleased with the game's new REQ system, which allows users to purchase virtual cards using real money or game currency. This may have also contributed to the astounding figures during the game launch.
Game Spot reported that Microsoft is planning to launch more features and events for "Halo 5" in 2016. The company earlier announced that a free release of 15 DLC maps will take place by the summer. Then, there's the Halo World Championship event to look forward to in December. A $1 million prize is at stake at the said competition.
"Halo 5: Guardians" was released exclusively for Xbox One on Tuesday, Oct. 27.
Meanwhile, Latinos Post reported that "Halo 6" is gearing up for its release next. There's a possibility that game developer 343 will adapt a split-screen feature for this, since they were not able to do it for "Halo 5."
