: I think Schooly's point still stands that even if it sold amazingly, that was
: mostly due to hype, a new company, awesome graphics, and Master Chief
: being back. Then people played it. Then the game dropped to 13th on the
: Xbox Live activity chart within a year of its launch, and is who knows
: where now. Meanwhile, even a game like Reach that came out in 2010 is
: still top 18, only having been bounced from the list once, and comparable
: AAA games (or lesser quality AAA games) have managed to hold their own and
: stay higher up on the chart (with many having their populations split
: between multiple similar games, like BF3 and BF4, or the endless CoD games
: that are everywhere).

: Thus, although H4 might be the best selling allegedly, it doesn't back up
: that 9 million sales thing. Define best. Was it best selling because it
: sold a billion copies in its first month or two, or in its first 24 hours,
: blowing away previous Halo launches? I know you're being funny (I hope),
: but it's still a sad source, and still doesn't say anything about where H5
: will be based on actual numbers and interest and care and people playing.

In response to whether halo is on shaky ground or not from yesterday, I don't think the next Halo is in trouble as far as financial success. Halo 4 was successful from a financial standpoint which is what halo needs to continue as a franchise. But I do think that the Halo after the next Halo, Halo 6 we'll say, does stand on shaky ground due to the impression of Halo multiplayer value. The population graphs of Halo 4 certainly show customer entertainment value, with customer's multiplayer entertainment value being described as population constant over total sales. Comparing Halo 4's population constant for the first year (40,000) to Reach(roughly 75,000 - 125,000 from personal memory) and Halo 3(roughly 150,000 - 200,000 from personal memory) we can see that the population constant dropped significantly for Halo 4. When we compare overall sales with the population constant, with halo 4 Selling more than Halo 3 and reach we can see that the Multiplayer value of Halo 4 is significantly lower than both titles. Multiplayer value is incredibly important to a games future success, if people enjoy an experience they will want to share this experience due to humanities social nature and due to the human behavior of maintaining and creating social connections people will persuade others to purchase and experience what they've found valuable and enjoyable, thus ensuring greater sales numbers for the next product strictly for multiplayer reasons and social pressure. People are likely to forgive one less valuable product and give the next product a try. If the next Halo game's multiplayer value (population constant / total sales) decreases further it shows that the entertainment value for the multiplayer has decreased and thus less people are being persuaded to purchase the game or the next installment because less people find it entertaining or worth sharing and those that bought the game for the multiplayer entertainment value in the first place and find it less enjoyable will likely not purchase the next title unless others are able to persuade them back into it by repeating the process. From my statistical analysis of the multiplayer population and relating it to value and enjoyment we can see that the Halo video game franchise is not on solid ground and it’s up to 343’s performance in the next title that will determine an increase or decrease in Halo’s future financial success in the video game market but we will likely not see the results until the following release after Halo 5.