分析家指出 HALO 3 将成为微软Xbox业务扭亏为盈的里程碑

编译： 叉包饭斯DKCK

毫无疑问 HALO 3 将会大卖。唯一的悬念是大卖到何种程度。几周前坊间开始盛传零售巨头 GameStop 一家的HALO 3预定量就已经突破400万大关。而 Goldman-Sachs 的分析家又给出了他们对本作9月25日盛大首发后的走向预测——甚至更为乐观。

HALO 3目前确定的发售日恰好是微软08财年第一财季（从07年七月到九月）的尾声， Goldman-Sach 的业界观察人士指出，本作有望为这一财季贡献高达1亿7千万美元（$170 million）的收入，向零售渠道出货约420万份游戏拷贝。根据预测，到07年9月Xbox 360的装机量有望达到 1千320万台，即达到平均每三台Xbox 360主机就有一张HALO 3游戏的水平。（即占到用户装机量的三分之一，即33％左右）

分析家还指出，如果届时用户装机量不足预期，1亿7千万美元这个数字可能还要下调5千万美元。除了新作，微软对已发售游戏的继续出货也有望为其财报增添亮色，根据分析，微软会保持其80％的第一方游戏价格不变。（即只有20％的老游戏会进入廉价版行列）

我们不妨回顾一下2004年11月前辈 HALO 2 的表现，在微软财季中期推出二代时，Xbox的装机量为1千990万台。微软在财季末售出了750万份拷贝（占用户装机量的38％），发售第一天出货就达到238万份。

比游戏销售数字更为激动人心的，或许是 Goldman-Sachs 分析师对 HALO 3推出一周后微软财季财报的预测——微软的Xbox业务将迎来有史以来第一个盈利季度。正如当家人Robbie Bach此前表示的，微软自己也把2008财季作为家庭和娱乐设备事业部扭亏为盈的转折点。

附消息原文

引用:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6171483.html
Analysts: Halo 3 to push Xbox business into the black
Goldman-Sachs expects first-week sales of Bungie's shooter to reach about $170 million, giving Microsoft's gaming division its first profitable quarter.
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted May 24, 2007 12:14 pm PT

There's no question that Halo 3 is going to be big. Several weeks ago, a rumor surfaced that GameStop had already collected an outlandish 4 million preorders for the game. Today, a quartet of Goldman-Sachs analysts released their own projections for the game's September 25 launch, with numbers nearly as gaudy.

While Halo 3 is releasing right at the end of Microsoft's first fiscal 2008 quarter (which runs from July through September), Goldman-Sach's industry watchers are expecting the game to contribute about $170 million in revenue for the quarter, with more than 4.2 million copies shipped into the retail channel. That's nearly one copy for every three Xbox 360s in the world, going by the analysts' projections of an installed user base of 13.2 million by September.

They also note that the $170 million figure could be low by as much as $50 million if they've low-balled the installed user base. Microsoft's tendency to put revenue from games on its books as soon as they're shipped out could also boost the revenue number, as could any change to the analysts' royalty model, which assumes Microsoft keeps 80 percent of the retail price on first-party games.

For comparison, Halo 2's November 2004 launch came in the middle of Microsoft's financial quarter, when the original Xbox installed user base was 19.9 million. Microsoft sold 7.5 million copies by the end of the quarter (38 percent of the user base), with 2.38 million sold on day one, according to the analysts.

Perhaps more significant than the sales figures that Goldman-Sachs expects Halo 3 to put up is the analysts' expectation that by the end of its first week of release, the game will have driven Microsoft's Xbox division to its first profitable quarter ever. Microsoft has been touting its fiscal 2008 as the turning point in the entertainment and devices division for some time, as Robbie Bach first made mention of the profitability goal in July of 2006.

引用:

原帖由 藕是张力 于 2007-5-26 05:50 发表
38%算个鸟，GeOW现在是43%:D

所以，我个人觉得专家的预测还是相当保守的