Two titans of the videogame industry are set to go head-to-head this year as they both clamour for the cash of gaming enthusiasts worldwide, both battling for sales supremacy and ultimate domination in the realm of online multiplayer.

On September 14th, Halo: Reach from Bungie and Microsoft will be unleashed unto the world on a single console, the Xbox 360, and then on November 9th, Treyarch and Activision will launch Call of Duty: Black Ops on three platforms - the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Which game will outsell the other at launch?

In the blue corner…

Speaking to Eurogamer during a recent celebrity launch party for Halo: Reach, Stephen McGill of Xbox UK said of the battle between the two giants:

“It’s going to be a really good fight and yes I do [believe it],” McGill. “We have huge expectations. More than 34 million people have bought [a Halo game] and those people are going to want to play Halo: Reach. We’re going to do incredibly well.”

“Halo was the stand-out title when we launched Xbox ten years ago,” McGill contined. “It was the title that made FPS on consoles an accessible, fun, life-changing experience.”

McGill has seen a number of reviews and review scores for Halo: Reach, and says that he’s “very happy” with the results.

In the red corner…

Market analyst at Wedbush Morgan, Michael Pachter believes, however, that Call of Duty: Black Ops will definitely outsell Halo: Reach due to the number of platforms Black Ops will release on (three) versus that of Halo: Reach (one):

“Because it will be multi-platform, I think Black Ops will outsell Halo Reach,” said Pachter. “Activision appears to agree with me, and the marketing campaign for Black Ops should be even bigger than the Halo marketing campaign.”

Will Activision really outdo Microsoft’s marketing spend on Halo: Reach with its own advertising splurge on Black Ops? Microsoft has already claimed that advertising spend on Halo: Reach will be at least 60 percent greater than what was used for Halo 3, and will represent the company’s biggest ever marketing push for any of its previous titles.

The legendary marketing campaign for Halo 3 resulted in the game industry’s biggest ever launch, until Grand Theft Auto IV and Activision’s own Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 released and broke Halo 3’s record. Modern Warfare 2 remains the industry’s most successful launch, and with Microsoft and Activision aiming to break the record again, who will come out on top?

“[There’s] not a chance that Halo Reach will launch bigger than MW2,” said Pachter. “It’s single platform, MW2 was multi-platform.”

Pachter believes Halo: Reach will sell roughly 6 million units by the end of 2010, with sales rising to around 8 to 10 million in 2011.

“That represents 20-25 per cent penetration of the Xbox 360 installed base,” Pachter continued. “To sell more, the game would have to resonate with the masses, which is definitely possible, but tough to predict.”

In the future, I suppose…

While Pachter isn’t always one hundred percent correct, I’m sure everybody remembers being very surprised when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare almost effortlessly outsold Halo 3 in 2007, thanks to its multi-platform nature.

It’s unclear whether or not Microsoft thinks Halo: Reach can outsell Call of Duty: Black Ops across all platforms, or just on the Xbox 360, but for what it’s worth, if there’s any game that will come close to challenging the mighty Call of Duty series, it must surely be Halo.

Look forward to the release of Halo: Reach this Tuesday, September 14th, and watch sales data flow in throughout the week.

Source: Eurogamer and NowGamer