Halo: Reach officially has a release date, September 14, according to a press release released by Microsoft and Bungie.
“Halo: Reach is the culmination of a decade of Halo, a franchise that has become a global entertainment and pop-culture touchstone,” said Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios at Microsoft Corp. “Just as Halo: Combat Evolved catalysed the success of the original Xbox to define a decade of entertainment, Halo: Reach will push the boundaries for what’s possible in video games and help make 2010 the biggest year in Xbox history.”
The recently concluded Halo: Reach beta attracted over 2.7M players, the largest beta test even conducted for a video game; in comparison, the Halo 3 beta had less than a third of Reach’s userbase. According to Bungie, players completed more than 13 million online games and logged over 16 million hours of online gameplay, amounting to over 1,826 years of total play time in just over a two-week period.
The Wall Street Journal predicts:
The game’s release will help a sector that has been struggling of late. U.S. sales of videogame hardware, software and accessories slumped 26% in April from a year earlier, said market research firm NPD Group, the fourth-largest decline ever.
Did you participate in the Halo: Reach beta? Let us know.
