Well, it looks like Halo Infinite got off to a pretty great start in the US! Despite its Xbox Game Pass launch, Halo Infinite still topped the December sales charts for both Xbox and PC platforms. Only Call of Duty beat it across all systems for the month.
We have to say we're quite surprised by the PC sales, given the series' ties to Xbox. We don't get a full breakdown of PC sales for the month, but the data includes Steam, which is likely where the majority of Infinite's PC sales came from. Here's what NPD Analyst Mat Piscatella said on Halo Infinite's sales:
"Halo: Infinite debuted as the No. 2 best-selling game of December 2021, [...] Halo: Infinite ranked as the December’s best-selling game on Xbox platforms, while also leading sales among tracked titles on PC."
We're not surprised to see it lose out to Call of Duty: Vanguard overall. While it may have been a weak year by the franchise's standards, CoD is still huge, and has a major presence on PlayStation platforms too.
Still, it's great to see Halo Infinite selling well even with free-to-play multiplayer, and a Game Pass launch to boot.
Did you buy Halo Infinite? Or is Game Pass where you played? Let us know in the comments.
[source venturebeat.com]
Comments 23
But, but, but...Xbox games don't sell if they are in Game Pass?!
Taking me time still on the campaign, collecting everything. Also taking my time with FH5.
Not sure if it’s gamepass or the recent purchase of Activision, but in the UK Argos and Game had series x for sale as bundles Monday and Tuesday, Argos was at £660 bundle.
But everything sold out quicker than usual especially for bundles as scalpers and others avoid bundles.
Interesting times ahead in this competitive market.
As expected. But no2 isn't "topping." no1 is topping. Although, I will say this feat is more impressive than it looks, given the fact Infinite is on Game Pass and the multiplayer is straight up F2P.
@Rural-Bandit
Not really played the much multiplayer.
Playing campaign on Heroic at the moment.
Hope we get some new big campaign dlc for Christmas 2022, new area, maybe some new goons to shoot.
Biggest two games of the end of year came #1 and #2!
Who would've guessed that!
"Halo: Infinite ranked as the December’s best-selling game on Xbox platforms"
... and I thought it would be The Gunk!
Honestly this would only be big news if it WASN'T this way.
I was one of the Steam purchasers! Mostly because the Xbox app on PC never worked for me and so I couldn't play through GP but oh well the game is well worth the price!
@Rural-Bandit
I have game pass and went back sometime ago
And played through some of them again, just to get my eye in and on target 🎯
Blue print for the future of CoD - MP Free to Play inc PS5 funded by seasons etc and 'updated' maybe every other year to switch Era's alongside Warzone. But Single Player Game Pass only content that will 'sell' on PC/Xbox only - if and when any studio wants to make a new Military Campaign for CoD when they could 'branch' out creatively to make a new FPS but scifi or horror, Treyarch could branch out from 'CoD' based Zombies to whatever they want their 'origin' to be Zombies'.
People playing on Game Pass will drive people on those systems to buy the games to play too. Game Pass on PC/Xbox can drive sales of games on those platforms because their 'friends' are enjoying it, its 'getting' good feedback.
The more games like this Game Pass has, the more it either drives sales long term, or convinces them to subscribe to get them 'free' on Game Pass but ultimately, subscribe to Game Pass.
@themightyant shush. At least it wasn't GTAV.
Best shooter multiplayer for me personally....like ever. I know it's not for everyone as i have friends who do not by like it and prefer COD but for me this is the benchmark. I've played this for multiple hours straight and never got bored.
I almost contributed to that number until it came out the disc didn't have the game on it.
As is, not dropped a single cent on this mess of a game, and it'll likely remain that way
The campaign has left a lot to be desired. If anything it heepa having me going back to Master Chief collection for those real good campaign moments.
The boss fights also don't do this game any justice. Nobody liked boss fights in previous Halos, so they brought them back? Makes sense.
Halo Infinite is great! 1 day 10hrs played mostly in campaign. 48% achievements completed. Having a break from it at the moment with breath of the wild on Wii U
Checking the overall charts for all games across all platforms this is the top 20 in December for both digital and physical sales combined
1 FIFA 22 (EA)
2 Call of Duty: Vanguard (Activision Blizzard)
3 Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
4 F1 2021 (Codemasters)
5 Just Dance 2022 (Ubisoft)
6 Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Sony)
7 Battlefield 2042 (EA)
8 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)*
9 Pokémon Brilliant Diamond (Nintendo)*
10 Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft)
11 Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (Square Enix)
12 Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (Mojang/Nintendo)
13 Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
14 Riders Republic (Ubisoft)
15 Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo)*
16 Pokémon Shining Pearl (Nintendo)*
17 Mortal Kombat 11 (Warner Bros)
18 Assassin's Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft)
19 LEGO Harry Potter Collection (Warner Bros)
20 Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy Definitive Edition (Rockstar)
So how does halo infinite rank 2nd on just xbox and pc platforms but not at all in the top 20 in the overall charts
@UltimateOtaku91 source for that list? The top 20 according to NPD for all platforms:
1 Call of Duty: Vanguard
2 Halo Infinite
3 Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl*
4 Madden NFL 22
5 Battlefield 2042
6 Mario Kart 8
7 Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
8 Mario Party Superstars*
9 NBA 2K22*
10 Animal Crossing: New Horizons
11 FIFA 22
12 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
13 Minecraft
14 Far Cry 6
15 Just Dance 2022
16 Forza Horizon 5
17 Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
18 Ghost of Tsushima
19 Super Mario 3D World*
20 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
@Tharsman https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2022-01-11-xbox-series-s-and-x-hits-1m-uk-sales-in-strong-december-uk-monthly-charts
Scroll down a bit
@UltimateOtaku91 as I expected by seeing FIFA at the top, that list is focused on the UK.
@Tharsman ah my bad, but still is halo not that popular in the UK then.
Wonder why nintendo don't share their digital sales data, I think if nintendo included their digital data both these lists would be way different, the new Pokémon games would likely be on top
@UltimateOtaku91 I’m not sure Microsoft share digital sales data with anyone but the NPD either, and that might be why you don’t see Halo chart at all in their lists. Physically Xbox does extremely poorly in the UK, and there is no physical PC copies of any Microsoft game.
The whole digital/physical sales thing really is meaningless online with how numbers for digital aren't reported. It's useful for the retail industry to know what inventory will move where, but it's not useful to the games industry to know what's actually being sold. Even for Japan it's a mess. The retail customers are generally a very specific type of customer at this point.
Also, HTF is Miles still selling physical like that? It's over a year old, is abundantly cheap used, and really isn't all that great. I know, "marvel", but Guardians is a supremely better marvel game, and game overall.
@NEStalgia well I think for better accuracy going forward they all need to start adding the digital sales figures, I think I read that for playstation 51% of its software sales were physical last year whilst 49% digital, that's nearly half of all games sales are digital if not more on other platforms.
Edging closer and closer to that forsaken all digital future
@NEStalgia my guesses:
Compared to other PS5 games, its cheap
All in all, PS5 is still quite starving for exclusive titles, and Miles is practically the only serious offer that is not extremely hard, nor a remaster of a PS4 game.
Demon Souls and Returnal are both hard games that a lot of people are not into, Ratchet and Sackboy are a bit on the childish side for many (I still hope someday someone other than Nintendo cracks the formula on making such games sell like hotcakes) and what is left?
Death Stranding Directors Cut and FF7 remake?
Also, it's a Spider Man game, and a Spider Man movie just came out in December.
As for the digital thing, I do think its relevant information, but very inaccurate if it's not shared by the publisher themselves, and many only bother when it's worth bragging about.
@Tharsman Good point on it being cheaper. That really has to be it. I mean the marvel name goes far, and spiderman is probably at the top of marvel, but it's surely not the only marvel game and it's really kinda just "ok"compared even to the PS4 game.... Which was also kinda "ok".
Lol I didn't even know there was a new movie...I bet that does even more for it than the price.
Returnal is kind of indicative of Sony's problems. It's a fantastic game. Hard as nails but still pick up and play fun in the arcade sense of the word (unlike souls). But their view on pricing buried it before it launched. It sold horribly. And it deserved to. It's a $40 tops indie game with suped up gfx. If they kept the price in tune with what it offered I think it could have picked up a lot of word of mouth popularity. Instead it's that French film the coffee klatch won't shut up about. Maybe they can't give hfw away for $10/mo but realistic pricing wouldn't kill them.
And I just don't know why only Nintendo does well with "family"games. Probably because people but 6 Nintendo BECAUSE its known for those games and "mature" (read high schoolers) buy playstation as a rejection of such things. Maybe Xbox will get universal enough that Spyro, crash, and banjo can actually get somewhere? Probably not, but it's a dream.
@UltimateOtaku91 Yeah, I haven't seen Xbox percentages but id expect it's far more digital than the other two considering they built their whole design around digital while the other two have a pretty physical legacy, and if the other two hover around half, the physical charts might as well not even cover Xbox. But they're all so protective of the digital numbers for some reason.
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