Halo Reach Will Outsell Call Of Duty Black Ops, Boasts Xbox UK Director

The video game industry is a tough one. It's just as fierce and competitive as any other market in the tech world, and so it's no wonder that someone from Microsoft would boast some pretty fantastic predicted results for the upcoming title Halo: Reach. And when competition is brought up, First Person Shooter (FPS) titles Halo and Call of Duty are the two bodies entered into the title fight. With Reach and Black Ops set to release within arm's reach of one another, talk about sales numbers is starting to heat up.

According to Stephen McGill, who is the Director of Xbox and Entertainment for Microsoft in the United Kingdom, Reach is going to outself Black Ops. He goes on to point out that 34 million people have purchased a Halo video game, and that all of those 34 million people are going to want to play Reach. He may be accurate in his speculation: Reach is the final Halo-based title that's coming from the house that built Halo, Bungie Studios. And with the video game developer's Swan Song, they are throwing pretty much everything into the bucket, even the kitchen sink, to make sure that this title is the most enjoyable of the series.

However, the Call of Duty franchise has picked up considerable steam since the debut of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and picked up a ridiculous amount of players, along with racking up the earnings along the way. When Joystiq spoke with Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Morgan analyst, the results weren't so conclusive for the Halo title. He says that it will be a toss-up between the two titles, as far as sales go for the Xbox 360, but that he believes that Black Ops will prevail, and sell the majority of titles. (This is Activision's biggest published title to date.) And when they spoke with EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich, he pointed out that while both titles will do very, very well, the idea that Reach will out-sell Black Ops is "aggressively optimistic," but it just "won't happen."

While review units have been sent out for Halo: Reach, the reviews have yet to break cover — as the game hasn't been released, yet. But so far, from what people have been able to talk about, Reach is panning out to be a Bungie instant classic. And reviewers are probably already readying their final inputs to showcase a rating of 9 or above. A 10 may not be likely, but it is certainly possible.

As for Call of Duty: Black Ops, no one expects that title to get a rating below a 9, either. So, a ten point difference in ratings, which could make or break a title when people are looking for their next game to buy, isn't likely. With that being said, Reach may just be out-done by the fact that seeimingly more people enjoy the more "realistic" battle, rather than the usage of shields and super soldiers.

There does seem to be some clarification needed here, though. When McGill says that Reach will out-sell Black Ops, it's assumed that he means on the Xbox 360. However, Black Ops won't be sold just on the Xbox 360. It's seeing a multi-platform release (on the PC and PlayStation 3), so the sales numbers will already be skewed in that respect. However, the question of whether or not one title will out-sell the other on one console is still up in the air. We'd have to agree that, while Call of Duty has amassed a wide following and earned plenty of awards, Halo's fanbase may be just strong enough to pull ahead in the sales,when it's all said and done. What do you think? Which game is going to take the title?

[via Joystiq]