Microsoft has a lot riding on Halo 4, the next game in the gaming franchise that helped to also launch its Xbox game console business over 10 years ago. Today, the company offered up some statistics on the entire Halo series, and they are quite impressive.
Joystiq reports that since the first Halo game was released in 2001, the Halo franchise has sold a total of 46 million units, generating a whopping $3 billion in revenue. The Halo franchise has almost exclusively been developed by Bungie, who created Halo and Halo 2 for the original Xbox console, and Halo 3, Halo 3 ODST and Halo Reach for the Xbox 360.
Halo 1 and 2 were also ported to the PC, although not directly by Bungie. Halo Wars, the only Halo game that"s not a FPS (it was a RTS game) was the last game to be made by Ensemble Studios before Microsoft shut down the team in 2009.
Microsoft also said today that 5 billion hours of game time have been put into Halo games by players on Xbox Live. That will likely increase with the launch of Halo 4 next week. It will be the first game developed by Microsoft"s own 343 Industries team.
Source: Joystiq | Image via Microsoft