Halo Remake Sales Struggle On Both PS5 And Xbox
Halo: Campaign Evolved Estimated To Have Sold Just As Poorly On Xbox As It Has On PS5
Early indications suggested Halo: Campaign Evolved might not be selling all that well on PS5. Now new estimates paint a worrying picture for the remake’s sales on all platforms, as it’s believed to have sold just as poorly on Xbox consoles as it did on PS5.
We don’t have concrete numbers about Halo: Campaign Evolved’s sales yet. However, Alinea Analytics has shared a detailed breakdown of sales estimates for the remake. Alinea’s estimates are typically pretty accurate, so the picture its figures paint for the latest Halo game is likely close to reality.
Halo Is Selling Just As Well On PS5 As It Is On Xbox, But That's A Bad Thing
According to those estimates, Campaign Evolved has sold just as many copies on PS5 as it has on Series X|S. Of the 1.2 million copies sold, 41.8% have been sold on Xbox. PlayStation’s Halo estimates are almost identical, with 40.8% of those who have bought the game picking it up on PS5. Steam sales make up the remaining 17.4%. Unsurprising that the remake hasn’t sold well on PC since you can buy the Master Chief Collection on Steam for less.
1.2 million might sound like a big number, but Xbox almost certainly wanted it to be far bigger, even at this early stage. According to VG Sales, every mainline Halo game since Halo 3 has sold at least 9 million copies, aside from Infinite, for which sales data hasn’t been made available. A remake of the original game, and the first in the series to be available on PlayStation, there will have been a hope, maybe even an expectation, that Campaign Evolved would be a sales juggernaut.
Game Pass Has To Shoulder A Lot Of The Blame
The one thing those older Halo games didn’t have to compete with for sales was Game Pass. Even though the sales on PS5 and Xbox are almost the same, a lot more people have been playing on Series X|S due to the remake launching on Game Pass day one. That’s where most people have been playing, in fact, as it’s estimated that 2.1 million people played through Game Pass.
The jury really is out on the Game Pass model, as no matter how you frame it, that model has failed. Xbox expected Game Pass to have over 77 million subscribers by now. In reality, it has less than half that, and its total is now stagnant. Putting Campaign Evolved on Game Pass isn’t 2.1 million sales lost, but you have to think a significant chunk of those people would have bought the remake had they not been given it on Game Pass the second it launched.