Halo 3: ODST Dominates September Sales

Halo 3: ODST dominated September videogame sales, moving 1.5 million copies at launch despite being on the market for only nine days last month, according to data released today by the NPD Group.

What began as an expansion pack for 2007's Halo 3 turned into a full-fledged standalone game with a single-player campaign, a Firefight cooperative mode and the entire previous Halo 3 multiplayer experience with new maps. ODST's sales made it the No. 1 game in September.

"Halo 3 certainly impacted the industry two years ago when it was launched, and this year, Halo 3: ODST realized impressive sales making it the 6th best-selling SKU launch of all time," said NPD's Anita Frazier.

Although ODST's sales are impressive, the title sold less than half as many copies as its predecessor, Halo 3, which starred series hero Master Chief. Halo 3 sold 3.3 million copies when it was released in Sept. 2007.

Since ODST launched, more than 5 million unique players have spent more than 116 million hours playing one or the other Halo 3 games since ODST launched, according to Microsoft.

The launch of ODST helped give the game industry a slight boost over the same period last year, despite overall flat unit sales.

©2009-10-19, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved