Bungie Studios has announced that it has received over one million pre-orders for Halo 3, a first-person shooter game created exclusively for the X-Box 360. Halo 3 is slated for a September release in three different versions, a Standard Edition, a Limited Edition, and the highly collectible Legendary Edition. Demand for the game, which has set a record for pre-orders, is so great that Bungie expects that the Legendary Edition will be totally sold out by the time it is released on September 25th. Bungie has sold more than seven million copies of the previous two iterations of the game.
While word of mouth and the Internet grapevine have obviously stimulated huge pre-orders, Bungie is also mounting a major marketing campaign for the new game in September with some powerful partners. Mountain Dew is cross-promoting Halo 3 with the launch of a new beverage, Mountain Dew Game Fuel, which has a citrus/cherry flavor and even more caffeine than the regular Dew. 7-Eleven will be selling Halo 3 Slurpees and Burger King will feature Halo 3 on select packaging, while
Producers of Halo tie-in merchandise should benefit from all the promotion surrounding the launch of the latest version of the popular game. WizKids in particular should get a major boost for the launch of its Halo ActionClix CMG (see 'WizKids to Launch ActionClix') in September as should Corgi, which is shipping the first items in its line of Halo merchandise at the same time (see 'Corgi's Halo 3 Lineup'). Kotobukiya's superbly sculpted Halo 3 Master Chief PVC Statue (see 'Kotobukiya's Halo 3 Master Chief') should be available here in the U.S. in October and McFarlane Toy's line of Halo 3 Action Figures is due out in the spring of 2008 (see 'McFarlane's Halo 3 Toys'). Marvel has a new Halo series launching in August (see 'Marvel NYCC Round-up'), and even Marvel's Halo graphic novel, which was one of the best-selling graphic novels of 2006, should rack up some additional sales.
