@Arad

Yeah, the elite models are ingrained into my brain. I agree with you here, the Flood beats out everything I've seen in GTA.
@Steve

That second paragraph confuses me. The last I heard, PS3s were around 1/3 of the "hardcore" consoles sold with the 360 making up the other 2/3.

Dunno....the 18 rating restricts it to a lot less gamers....

The problem here is that all of you are writing like a bunch of xbox 360 fan boys. These analyst don't write articles to try and say one game is better than the other. They are simply giving comparisons so that we share holders have an idea of just how much money is going to get raked in by GTA4. And I can assure you, it's going to be a lot. Cha-ching!

One overrated game beats another.

11-13 MIL is a lot of copies. Think of the murder rate!

Let's use JT, Yee, and NIMF logic here. GTA4 will cause people to kill. If 11 Million copies are sold, then we can expect murder rates to skyrocket.

Hell, by my crude math if even 1% of the GTA buyers kill, then we are looking at at least 110,000 killers. Many of these brainwashed people will kill multiple people, boosting the number of GTA murder victims in the 100,000's.

Since emergency rooms around the world were filled with slingshot victims after Bully came out, we can only expect a bloodbath to come with GTA4.

"One overrated game beats another."

:D

@TheRoosterRngr

Yeah, besides, the Marathon series was way better than Halo. ;)

lol :- ) Those were some damn good games. Definitely classics.

A 90-foot Chief on the side of the building would be epic. :D

@ Canary Wundaboy
I'm not sure if you are American or not but at least in the US Halo 3 and GTA 4 have the same rating and I kind of think these articles were regarding the US market.

@ IanC
You're awesome, great comment

@ Halo fanboys
Well no shit it's due mainly to the fact that it's a multiplatform game, the article was in no way suggesting one game is better than the other, just that one would sell more. I really don't see your point, frankly I'm going to agree with IanC and say that while both games are fairly decent, they're both pretty overrated. If it makes you guys feel better I'm sure if you took into account the number of Xbox360 sales that were a direct result of people wanting to play Halo 3 (it was a killer app after all) the game probably made more money for your beloved Microsoft than this one will. Now just ask yourselves why you're so devoted to a company like Microsoft making money.

@Arad
"What matters is that GTAIV will (if estimates are to be trusted) outsell Halo 3. Saying such a thing is not indicative of the quality of said items"

That's exactly the thing i'm homing in on. Really, people being so quick to jump at the defense of Halo 3 reminds me of the people who were in an uproar over any site that gave halo 3 anything less than a 9.5 rating...

Really just because a game sells better does not necessarily speak for the quality of the game. Really, i know of plenty of games that i find better than Halo 3; really i got bored with Halo 3 months ago... Though some of the games i would think that were much better than halo 3 didn't generate as much in sales. Halo 3 in and of itself gets an advantage of being far more well advertised, was the continuation of a successful franchise, and thus its sales got a major boost in hype; something a lot of really good but non-franchise games don't get as much of. Really the sales and uproar surrounding halo 3 would be a lot less if it was the first in the series and not the 3rd. Hell another example i would bring up is EA sports games that get rehashed each year; they get high sales and they aren't even worth the discs they're burned on to

When these analysts say "A will outsell B" that is ALL they are saying. they are not saying "A is better than B" or anything like that... so really there is little point to reading this article and pointing out that they THINK Halo is a better game, cause quite frankly, the analysts don't give a damn about which game is better; all they are here to do is crunch the numbers

@Dark Sovereign
Pheh, you overestimate the influence of game critics, underestimate the stupidity of parents, and don't look hard enough at that mature game audience. Really, the adult gamers don't care about what politicians say, and them getting GTA alone will send the sales through the roof. The main parents listening to the ignorant concerns of game critics mostly come from the same crop of parents that would not be buying these games anyway; Politicans words usually don't change people perceptions so much as they pander to those who already believe the things they say. And then their are parents you either earnestly beleive their kids are mature enough and buy them the game along with the parents which are idiots and buy anything their kids want...

All in all, GTA IV will still sell higher despite the controversy...
Hell, actually i think one thing that has been said in the past is that controversy actually helps drive sales up... Critics think their fighting the game when they are really just providing free advertising.

@jds

Supposedly, Halo 3 sold about 8.1 million copies. That would put the 360 attach rate at about 50 percent.

@Monte'

And you overestimate the market. The Halo 3 base audience is far wider than the GTA base audience. Halo 3 was aided by an almost legendary hype machine, plus the fact that it was accepted by the main stream. GTA is accepted by the main stream to an extent, but not to the extent that Halo is. I don't question the quality of GTA. I don't care about the quality of Halo. But quality does not equal quantity. Just look at the Wii. Sold more systems than any other, but its games are crap and its controls are a gimmick. In addition, an FPS fan is not neccessarily and open world fan. The analysts seem to be basing everything off of a pure numbers game, completely denying any kind of social factor. Don't get me wrong, if GTA really does sell as predicted, I would be publicly willing to eat my words. As of now, I'm calling bullshit.

I don't quite buy that. GTA does also have a PS3 market, but it isn't that big anyway. Just based on personal experiences knowing many gamers, I find it very hard to believe You are going to get half of system owners rushing to get it like Halo did.

Maybe, but I would be very surprised. Console gaming is still ruled by the shooter, and GTA has never been known for it's prowess as a shooting game.

@MasterChief117

"It does matter. If Halo 3 had come out on PS3 as well as 360, Chances are it would have raked in well over $360 million."

I think our logic isn't connecting. : /

Halo 3 may have sold as much or more than GTAIV will tomorrow and the following week, but we'll never know because it's restricted to the 360. If movie A were released only on HDDVD (or HHDDBBDVD), while movie B was released on both HDDVD and BluRay, it would surprise noone that movie B would sell more. It's just poor luck for movie A that the producers restricted it's distribution.

@Dark Sovereign

"Halo 3 was aided by an almost legendary hype machine, plus the fact that it was accepted by the main stream."

You probably know this already, but you know what one thing authors want more than anything for their books? Blacklisting. Public outcry, symbolic book burning if possible. Why? Controversy creates publicity. The vocal 1% that call for the ban will stir the curiosity of all they can reach, and they'll buy/rent/borrow in order to see if the item in question is truly as evil as people said it is. Halo 3 spent millions of dollars in advertising and lucrative merchandising deals, but GTAIV will get moral crusaders screaming every hour on the hour on respectable news stations like Fox (*snicker*).

This will only work in GTAIV's favor, unless a judge does something stupid.

Also, can we please keep this conversation civil? If I wanted to debate a topic while jousting with thinly veiled insults and insinuations laced with sarcasm, I'd go back to middle school.

So who would get most of that $750 million?

@ Marlowe

Nope im a UKer. As such GTA4 has an 18 rating from the BBFC, Halo 3 has a 16+ rating from PEGI.

hmmm... people are forgetting that their are a great number of PC players of the GTA series who don't have a console who just might GET a console just because of GTAIV. There's still a decent sized number who just haven't gotten a console yet since GTAIII.

@ ZeroDash
Oh, I understand. :-) very clever.

@Dark Sovereign

"The curiosity buyer can net quite a few sales, but you notice that the extremely controversial Manhunt 2 didn’t sell all that well, dispite being blacklisted."

It probably didn't help that Manhunt 2 just wasn't a good game. Comparing Manhunt 2 to Grand Theft Auto IV is, IMO, like comparing the Scream movies to the Godfather. Besides the fact that it's apples to oranges, Manhunt 2 is a cheesy slasher game that relies on its violence as the selling point, whereas Grand Theft Auto is something else entirely.

Halo 3 was fun, but to be honest, it was a really shallow game. Every time you play through, or even the multiplayer, is going to be relatively the same. Throw a grenade into this hiding spot, wait in this alcove if you're being chased, go hug the enemy when stuck with a plasma grenade. GTA has my respect because so much can happen that isn't scripted. In San Andreas, I left my character on the sidewalk while I went to get a drink. When I came back, the entire intersection was erupting in gunfire and speeding cars. What happened? Garbage truck driver rear-ends a police car. Garbage man gets out with a baseball bat, policeman gets out with his gun. One shot missed and hits a posse of gangmembers on the sidewalk. Chaos ensues. I have never laughed so hard at the pure bedlam that was caused by a simple fender-bender.

"That audience includes people from 3 to 93. The GTA audience, on the other hand, is mostly limited to the over-17’s and the below 50’s."

Two things. One, three-year-olds playing Halo 3? Then again, from some of the stuff I hear through the headset sound about that age.

Two: Both Halo 3 and GTA have the same rating. I find it interesting that this only seems to affect GTAIV...

"They are not forgetting anything. GTA’s numbers will come from console gamers. The PC market hasn’t really shown itself to be all that relevant in console games."

@Arad

Halo 3 got sales based on multiplayer. Last I checked, there were still 2 million on daily. Not all through the day mind, but 2 million daily. Secondly, Halo may be M, but it is a little hard to justify the title. It's got gun violence and alien blood. GTA on the other hand, is perfectly happy with flinging its M rating in your face constantly. It has some sort of sexual content, stereotypes run rampant, scarcely a sentence goes by without a curse, and there are a number of "adult" themes, like drugs and pimps. Finally, any game is "samey" if you only go through the single player. If I'm going through single player, it's generally because I want an experience similar to the one I got the last time around. If I want different in Halo 3, I screw around in Forge and invite my friends. I have enough love in me for both games, but I am one of a few, it seems. And is that last quote supposed to stand on its own?

Meh. Let the consumers decide and then see how GTA IV did after the dust settles.

I agree, GTA IV is on multiple consoles, so it gives it a better audience... However, there are a couple of facts on the Halo 3 success I'd like to bring up.

With the release of Halo 3 Xbox 360s sold like CRAZY. So many gamers threw down a lot more than cash just for the game. I'll admit I was one of those gamers. There's another side to Halo 3 as well. You're killing aliens in a sci-fi environment versus a human killing other humans as in GTA IV. A parent is more apt to buy a game for little "timmy" even with an M rating simply because it isn't human on human violence. We've had MANY parents in the forums before discussing that their children were mature enough to handle the sci-fi violence and language. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they would not be as apt to do the same with GTA IV. Let's face it... The GTA IV audience is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than the Halo 3 audience. Comparing the two games, in my opinion, is comparing apples to oranges.

So... Going back to the sales angle. I'm sure that GTA IV will do very well, AND will out do the sales Halo 3 posted. But, again this is apples to oranges. Microsoft wanted CONSOLE sales with the release of Halo 3. GTA IV just wants game sales.

One thing I feel I should bring up, I don't know if anyone noticed this. I honestly found the Flood forms of the humans and elites to be rather disturbing. Specifically, their heads and faces. Lolling, slack-jawed, pushed aside by mutated alien organs, muttering things in gargling voices as they shuffle toward you.

Maybe all those 3 year olds that play Halo 3 just don't notice it, but if I were to see something like that at that age, it would have scared the crap out of me.

@Arad

Actually, I had forgotten them. That's a VERY good point. Kind of funny. The flood of Halo 3 were the best of all three incarnations, and made the Flood seem like an actual sentient species. But that made them the most disturbing.

@Arad

Also, don't forget the Flood ship towards the end.

@go fish

LMAO!

I know 5 people that still own PS3s. All of them ended up buying 360s because the PS3, despite it's superior hardware, has a lack of games, and everyone else is playing on LIVE.

I wonder how many PS3 owners out there do not own 360s as well. I wonder if the PS3 market really offers more than 50% of consoles sold. My guess, once again anecdotal, is that many potential buyers of the PS3 version will be buying it for their xbox instead because they want to play it with their friends on LIVE.

I have to wonder just because I've never seen anyone that is an exclusive PS3 console owner.

@BrandonL337
I agree completely. Halo 3 may not have been revolutionary, and it may have been incredibly hyped, but at the very least it was polished far beyond what most devs seem to be capable of. As a major FPS fan (console and PC both-originally PC in fact) I quite enjoy it. What originally drew me to the series was the co-op play, but I also enjoy the multi- and single- player modes. Just because it has its fanboys and a lot of marketing doesn't mean it's bad.

As for the original topic: Sales figures have little to do with whether or not either game is any good. GTA as a series has a larger fanbase than Halo, and a significant number of them may not yet have a current-gen console. I'd be interested to see how console sales change (both PS3 and 360) at release. As for who the audience is, I'm not really sure what the age group shakedown is, but if you look at sales records for previous GTA games and the three Halo games (not sure where to find those exactly) I would say that is the most relevant factor here.

@Arad

I had that same problem. It's died down now though. Maybe it's that new chip?

The GTA series can also use controversy to draw sales. HALO can't do that. So yeah, combined with the fact that GTA is available on multiple consoles, it doesn't surprise me that it would sell more than HALO.

@monte

I get what your saying, even so a lot of games get boring after a while even with multiplayer the only games that I played that didn't do this were: GH3, Crackdown, and Dead Rising (altough to be fair I only recently started playing that again after getting the Real bad ending and now my tv burst a bulb or something and now I can't see when it turns night /cries)
and for my brother it's Oblivion and he's put 90+hours into like all 5 of his saves, it scares me

@Arad

What in the hell have you been doing to your 360 and how on earth did you manage to get a turkey inside of it.

It matters quite a bit that GTA is multi-platformed and Halo 3 was not. It's pretty pathetic to brag that one game outsold another when it had more platforms to sell to. Also, no one is an xbox fan boy (in my case, girl) for pointing that out. It's simply logic.

Of course, the rating of each game might make a difference. We'll have to see.