2026-09-25 · blog
Halo 3 (2007) - $170 million on day one, and the ad showed a hand-built diorama instead of the game
Episode 66 of "Today Is Release Day": Halo 3, made by Bungie and released by Microsoft on Xbox 360 on September 25, 2007 in North America and Australia. The pre-release campaign, "Believe", showed no gameplay. What it showed was a physical diorama over 1,200 square feet in area and over twelve feet tall. The game took $170 million in the United States in its first twenty-four hours and over $300 million worldwide in its first week, and it averaged 94 on Metacritic. Inside the disc were Forge, which let players rebuild multiplayer maps, and Theater, which saved up to a hundred matches to watch back.
