On a day of Microsoft earnings numbers, the Master Chief dropped some numbers and some news himself. First up, in a tweet from the official Halo Twitter account, Halo: Infinite has become the biggest launch in Halo history:
With over 20 million Spartans joining us so far, we’re thrilled to announce that #HaloInfinite is the biggest launch in Halo franchise history!
Thank you, everyone, for joining us on the next step in this great journey. pic.twitter.com/d4EIsvWYVr
— Halo (@Halo) January 25, 2022
As Paul Thurrott points out, the impressive showing comes with some caveats: first, Halo: Infinite was the first game in the series to launch with a free multiplayer version, with those numbers included in the 20 million players total, and for the first time, Halo launched on multiple hardware versions. From Thurrott:
This title is available across Xbox One and Series X|S, PC, Xbox Game Pass, and Xbox Cloud Gaming, the latter of which includes PC, Xbox consoles, the web, Android, iPhone, and iPad. That’s great, but this massive availability clearly had an impact on the numbers too.
That’s not all the Halo news on this earnings day, either. In another tweet, this time from Halo on Paramount+, comes news that the official trailer for the long awaited Halo TV series is set to air during halftime of the NFL’s AFC Championship game on Sunday on CBS and Paramount+:
Suit up Spartans, the wait is almost over. The official trailer for #HaloTheSeries lands this Sunday during halftime of the AFC Championship Game on @CBS and @ParamountPlus. pic.twitter.com/fRzZ1Ml6cD
— Halo on Paramount+ (@HaloTheSeries) January 25, 2022
The subscription based Paramount+ network, is no stranger to science fiction shows, and is home of Star Trek Discovery and Picard, among others. Microsoft has had its issues with getting TV series off the ground, and Halo has been delayed and bounced around a number of times to a number of studios. A compelling series could bring in whole new audiences for Halo and Xbox, so here’s hoping that the new series is a big hit.
