Microsoft expects Halo 3 to reclaim entertainment top spot

Filed under: Culture, Microsoft Xbox 360, Business

Gamers are often quick to remind people, with Asperger accuracy, that for a while, Halo 2 stood atop a virtual pile of vanquished entertainment properties, grossing an unprecedented $125 million over just 24 hours. Of course, when the discussion addresses the price difference between a $10 film admissions, a $25 book, and a $50 video game, we're quick to point out that it's impressive nevertheless and, oh hey, did you see that fully-functioning warthog?

That was nearly three years ago. Now, Spider-Man 3 (yes, that one) stands at the top of the heap with an impressive $151 million dollar take. Like that giant ten-pointer mounted above your grandfather's mantle, everyone (including Microsoft) knows bigger is better, so they're gunning for Spidey's top spot and hoping to re-crown Master Chief as the king of the most lucrative entertainment properties ... in a 24-hour period. But Microsoft isn't gunning for Spidey alone. It's got friends like Comcast, Burger King, 7-Eleven, Mountain Dew and Pontiac riding shotgun, throwing their hefty promotional weight behind the cause.

If this all sounds hopelessly trivial, try to recall that swell of pride when you told that 8th-grader his beloved boy wizard was powerless against the cybernetically-augmented Master Chief. Microsoft's Chris Di Cesare spells it out for us, saying before that, "When we went to talk to promotional partners, [we'd] spend half the meeting talking about the videogame business. When we opened to $125 million, that really caught a lot of people's attention. It showed that videogames were no longer that thing that kids play in their basement." So, with another record opening this September - no doubt aided by a $60 (or $130) price tag - we can again resume our schoolyard taunts of video game supremacy. So there.

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[via] Joystiq