Newsflash:

Halo 3 pre-orders outpace Playstation 3!

News this week that pre-orders for the upcoming Microsoft Xbox 360 game Halo 3  had reached over 4 million came a surprise to many, but to the Halo faithful, it was inevitable:

Posted by: Heretic
"you can't handle Halo... trust me"

Fansite Xbox Evolved reported yesterday that officials at retail chain Gamestop had said that the next-gen sequel's pre-orders had broken the 4 million mark; in North America alone.

One can only guess what the world pre-order figures might be, but these numbers seem to indicate that they are far beyond all expectations.

These pre-order figures alone, if true, break previous pre-order records set by the Halo 3's prequel; Halo 2 which attained over 1.5million pre-orders. They also meet the world-wide sales figures for the Xbox 360s currently best selling game, Gears of War by Epic Software, which itself has only just broken the 4 million mark.

Perhaps most surprisingly of all, these figures for one un-released Xbox 360 game out-pace the worldwide sales figures of Xbox 360s rival, the Playstation 3.

Live estimates:

Launching last year in Japan and North America, and March in Europe, culmulative world-wide sales estimates for the Sony console barely scrape past the 3 million mark at the time of writing.

Reception for the $600 (£425) console has been described as 'luke-warm.' With rival Nintendo's cheaper console ($250, £180), the "Wii," selling at a blistering pace since it launched last year around the same time as the Playstation 3. Whose sales figures have more than double that of the PS3.

Back on Halo 3; a public multiplayer beta test of the game is sheduled to start over the Xbox 360s Xbox Live service in only 5 days time (16th may). Which can only increase the amount of hype (and pre-orders) surrounding the game. Players interested in the Beta test should head over to Halo3.com to find out how they can. Estimates place the number of players that will participate in the Beta at around the 1/2 million mark, which would be a record activity on the Live gaming service for the Beta version of a game.

So is a next-gen first person shooter from Bungie Studios more popular than the latest iteration of Sony's world-famous Playstation games console? Time will ultimately tell, but for now at least, it does seem like it is.

:)

Update: Although this his very funny, it doesn't seem like it could be true. As HBO extraordinare Louis Wu figured out, there simply aren't enough Gamestop stores with enough pre-orders to meet the 4 million figure. But hey, by the time Halo 3 comes out in September 26th, maybe its sales will be better than PS3s. Who knows?