Half Life 2: Countdown to November 16

[PaulBot]

How can we post a countdown timer on the board so we know at a glance how far away the biggest day of 2004 is?

Anyone wanna volunteer to update this thread every 15 minutes until the 16th?  :wink:

[AgtFox]

How can we post a countdown timer on the board so we know at a glance how far away the biggest day of 2004 is?

Are you talking about Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or Halo 2 here?  Both of them will probably outsell Half-Life 2...heh.

[Jeff]

Heh, I actually thought of something like this. A little java button would be cool. but we'd need two, one for Halo 2, and one for Half Life 2. Heck I guess we'd need one for San Andreas as well

November is gonna be insane.

edit: haha, simulpost with AgtFox :p

[farley2k]

Wouldn't a calendar work just as well?

[Destructor]

Heh, I actually thought of something like this. A little java button would be cool. but we'd need two, one for Halo 2, and one for Half Life 2. Heck I guess we'd need one for San Andreas as well

What about Metroid Prime 2? Or Everquest 2? Or Worlds or Warcraft?

Too many games coming out to play...

[AgtFox]

What about Metroid Prime 2? Or Everquest 2? Or Worlds or Warcraft?

This is only my guess, but I would bet Half-Life 2 will outsell all 3, but not combined probably.

[Raintitan]

:-) November 16th is my birthday. Great timing.

But I'd rather have it now via Steam.

[Kevin Grey]

What about Metroid Prime 2? Or Everquest 2? Or Worlds or Warcraft?

This is only my guess, but I would bet Half-Life 2 will outsell all 3, but not combined probably.

Metroid Prime 2 is a safe bet- the original clocked in at just over a million and I expect MP2 to do three quarters of that or less.  HL2, on the other hand, will likely be a million seller by the end of the year.

HL2 will also surely beat out WoW and EQ2 in terms of sales for 2004 but long-term is up in the air.  Hasn't EQ sold somehting like 4 million or so boxed copies or something insane like that?

[PaulBot]

HL2, on the other hand, will likely be a million seller by the end of the year.

I'd bet it'll be a million seller on Nov. 16.

[JayG]

Hasn't Halo 2 pre-sold over a million and a half copys in America alone? (I know I shouldn't believe Microsoft hype, but you never know)

And I reckon that GTA: San Andreas will be the top seller of those three. P2 has such a huge install base. In fact if the rumours of HL2 coming to XBox 2 are true, there will probably be a P3 version as well, which will make it a huge seller.

[jztemple]

:-) November 16th is my birthday. Great timing.

But I'd rather have it now via Steam.

November 16th is my 25th wedding anniversary... and she's NOT a gamer...

[Kevin Grey]

HL2, on the other hand, will likely be a million seller by the end of the year.

I'd bet it'll be a million seller on Nov. 16.

I don't know, Doom 3 sold 375,000 copies in the entire month of August.  It took Sims 2, what 10 days, to sell a million.  While I think HL2 is arguably a bit more sought after than Doom 3 I don't know if quite equals Sims 2.  

As JayG noted, MS has been trumpeting Halo 2's pre-order record of 1.5 million.  If HL2 was anywhere close to a million in preorders then I would expect VU to have been issuing press releases to that effect.

[Sepiche]

Call me nuts, but unless GTA:SA actually has full coop (not just coop on selected missions) I don't think it's going to sell as well as the past two.  Honestly I'm pretty burnt out on the whole GTA thing (I argueably was burnt out after GTA 3, but I still enjoyed GTA:VC for a bit).

Might just be me, but I don't plan on buying it.

s

[AgtFox]

Call me nuts, but unless GTA:SA actually has full coop (not just coop on selected missions) I don't think it's going to sell as well as the past two.  Honestly I'm pretty burnt out on the whole GTA thing (I argueably was burnt out after GTA 3, but I still enjoyed GTA:VC for a bit).

This is an excellent argument.  I personally am very interested in seeing how well San Andreas sells versus the prequels.  I am in the same camp as you.  I really liked GTA3 and GTA: Vice City (heck, I reviewed both here), but for some reason I have a hard time telling myself to buy San Andreas over any of the games coming in November that I'm excited about...many of which are sequels (Halo 2, Half-Life 2, PoP2, etc.).

Maybe I'm burned out on the whole GTA thing and need a blockbuster and cohesive review in order to jump start an interest in the game.  When I went to pre-order games a bit ago, San Andreas was not one of those games.  I felt like spending the money on other games I find to be of higher use than this one.

I may still bend to the power and get San Andreas if I'm blown away, we'll see.

[Kevin Grey]

I'm not the biggest GTA fan in world (though I have greatly enjoyed the previous two games).  In fact, the sheer size of San Andreas may have me put it off until sometime after the holidays as I sincerely doubt I could complete it before the onslaught begins on November 9th (hell, really November 2nd for me when Ratchet and Clank: UYA releases).  

That said, I'm pretty impressed with what Rockstar has put into this one.  They could have pushed out another one last year to give Take Two a boost but I think it was a wise move to sit a year out.  The sheer amount of content in GTA: SA combined with a lot of new gameplay additions makes this, on paper, look to be about the best they could do short of a new graphics engine (which won't happen until the next generation).  

Is there GTA burnout?  Could be but the GTA Double Pack on Xbox sold over a million copies and is the number four Xbox title despite following VC by a year. Substandard GTA knock-offs like True Crime and The Getaway have also posted impressive sales telling me that the general public is still hungry for GTA-style gameplay.  

The jury is still out on whether SA can top the previous titles' meteoric success but I think Rockstar can get 5 million sales easy which would still be the number three console title of this generation behind the other two GTAs.

[PaulBot]

:-) November 16th is my birthday. Great timing.

But I'd rather have it now via Steam.

November 16th is my 25th wedding anniversary... and she's NOT a gamer...

You've got a problem! It's my mothers birthday, but she's 700 miles away, so that's not a problem.

The problem is it's a work day, and I work 12 hours!!

The good news is it's my last work day that week, so hopefully I'll get in some serious gaming time on the 17th.

[Jumangi]

HL2, on the other hand, will likely be a million seller by the end of the year.

I'd bet it'll be a million seller on Nov. 16.

I don't know, Doom 3 sold 375,000 copies in the entire month of August.  It took Sims 2, what 10 days, to sell a million.  While I think HL2 is arguably a bit more sought after than Doom 3 I don't know if quite equals Sims 2.  

As JayG noted, MS has been trumpeting Halo 2's pre-order record of 1.5 million.  If HL2 was anywhere close to a million in preorders then I would expect VU to have been issuing press releases to that effect.

Maybe initially Halo would outsell HL2 but in the long run I don't think you can say that for sure. The first HL is one of the all time biggest sellers with over 7 million copies sold. Over twice what Halo has done. I would say come back a year from now and see were each one stands.

Either way their both going to sell a ton of copies.

[\/\/olverine]

Are you talking about Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or Halo 2 here? Both of them will probably outsell Half-Life 2...heh.

I think we were talking about the PC platform anyhow, in which case yes I think Half-Life 2 will be the biggest seller this year, if not then right behind Sims 2. As far as whether or not HL2 mimics HL in that the sales carry for years to come has to do with how revolutionary HL2 is, just being an excellent and highly polished FPS will not do.

[happydog]

Back to the countdown, someone made one that can be used as your desktop (Active Desktop). It is just a web page so it could easily be posted.

Linky!

[PaulBot]

Two weeks to go!!

I can't believe the election is getting more press than HL2!!  :lol:

[Sam Hell]

:-) November 16th is my birthday. Great timing.

But I'd rather have it now via Steam.

Hey! Me to!  

[warning]

Half-Life 2
Pre-loading is complete
When the game is officially released, you'll be able to play it immediately.

     

[Gryndyl]

12 days.

[Laner]

I did my Silver pre-order today...

[Big Jake]

Willpower...slipping....

[Jeff]

Willpower...slipping....

[PaulBot]

Finally got those friggin politicians out of our hair!!

Time for the REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF!!

Come on 16th!!!!

Dangit - I'm only 86% downloaded now!! Phase 7 rears it's ugly head and the Steam servers are too busy to service me!!  :evil:  Do they know who they are dealing with??

[CeeKay]

<foaming at the mouth>

EIGHT DAYS!!! EIGHT DAYS!!!


 :wink:

[AgtFox]

<foaming at the mouth>

You should really get that looked at

[PaulBot]

It's less than a week now.

I can't stand it..... :x

[warning]

It just kills me to know that a locked copy is just sitting there on my hard drive.  Mocking me.  Taunting me.

[CeeKay]

It just kills me to know that a locked copy is just sitting there on my hard drive.  Mocking me.  Taunting me.

If it's doing that just delete it

[CeeKay]

<foaming at the mouth>

You should really get that looked at

Naw, I only seem to foam when I eat soap chips

[warning]

It just kills me to know that a locked copy is just sitting there on my hard drive.  Mocking me.  Taunting me.

If it's doing that just delete it

Nah.  If I ignore it, maybe it'll go away and find someone else to bother.

[BigRedCat]

I caved in and bought Half-Life 2 Silver off Steam. I'm going to be busy next week so I decided to just let it download and then I won't have to worry about going to the store next week.

I can't wait.

[PaulBot]

It's getting soooo close I can smell it.....  :lol:

[Turtle]

No, that's just the smell of millions of people wetting themselves over HL2's imminent release.  

[Vidiot]

49 hours and 27 minutes.

[jonsauce]

Even though I know this won't happen, I am hoping the EB calls me on monday to let me know my preorder is in and ready for pick up so that I can unlock it first thing on tuesday

[Valael]

I freaking have school ALL DAMN DAY LONG tuesday.  I'm pissed.  And I can't miss any of my classes because I have a test in 2 and a speech in another.



Dammit, dammit, dammit.