As any and all gamers know, Bungie's latest (and last) installment of the Halo franchise debuted just over a week ago to phenomenal sales, critical acclaim and favorable fan furor. Halo: Reach, the prequel to the Halo trilogy, takes players back to the last days of when Spartans dominated the battlefield. There is no Master Chief. Instead, we have Noble team, an elite group of Spartan soldiers tasked with fighting through the invasion of Reach and saving as many lives as possible during the one-sided war.

Within a day, Reach beat Halo 2's record of unique users on Xbox Live (obviously) and it beat Halo 3's one-day sales record of $170 million in  with over $200 million of its own. While it doesn't close in on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's single day record of an astonishing $310 million, it does dominate for exclusive title sales and represents the biggest entertainment launch of 2010. Remember, Activision's Call of Duty plays on all consoles as well as PC. Now, let's check on some more detailed interesting Halo: Reach statistics...

The folks at Raptr put together an infographic using their own data which details some interesting info about Halo: Reach and its first full week after hitting retailers. Here are some highlights, followed by the infographic:

  • Halo: Reach takes over Modern Warfare 2's spot as most played Xbox 360 title.
  • Modern Warfare 2's playtime dropped 50% when Reach launched.
  • Average player played over 23 hours in first week.
  • Over 70% of players beat game in first week.

While the stats on completion rates may not seem to interesting on its own, its uncommon for such a high percentage of the gaming base (especially a large one such as this) to devote the time to completing it all in the first few days. It really gets interesting when compared to the lifetime completion rates of the previous Halo titles:

Halo: Reach Completion Rates - 1st Week of Sales:

  • On Normal difficulty — 37.35%
  • On Heroic difficulty — 22.29%
  • On Legendary difficulty — 11.87%

Halo 3: ODST Completion Rates - Full Lifetime of Game:

  • Normal difficulty — 40.75%
  • Heroic difficulty- 25.77%
  • Legendary difficulty — 20.19%

Halo 3 Completion Rates - Full Lifetime of Game:

  • Normal difficulty — 43.21%
  • Heroic difficulty — 29.25%
  • Legendary difficulty — 24.55%

As you can see, Reach players are closing in on what they accomplished in the entire lifetimes of the previous two Halo titles, all in a period of one week. Then again, we know the campaigns aren't too long and the long-term focus is on the multiplayer gameplay once they devour the single player side of it.

If you haven't already, check out this incredible video, depicting the Halo: Reach armor lock glitch.

Is Reach providing your current gaming fix? What upcoming game release may pull you away?

Halo: Reach is available now exclusively for the Xbox 360.

Source: Raptr