Halo 3 - Release

Release

Microsoft spent more than $40 million marketing Halo 3. The goal of the campaign was to sell more Xbox 360 consoles and widen the appeal of the game beyond the "Halo faithful" to casual as well as hardcore gamers. Marketing took the form of stages, including trailers of the game, real-time cinematics, recorded gameplay sequences, pre-rendered CGI, and live action film. On September 12, 2007 the "Believe" Halo 3 ad campaign, focused on the epic nature of the story and heroism told through dioramas and third party accounts of Master Chief's service, began with the video "Museum" and continued on past the game's release.

Throughout the course of development Bungie released four "developer documentaries" that explained the processes behind creating parts of the game. A large scale multiplayer beta test was played on Xbox Live with more than 800 000 members of the public being able to take part and experience the game for themselves. Beginning in June 2007, an alternate reality game called Iris involved players in slowly revealing background information for the game. The actual release was met with worldwide launch parties.

Halo 3 also had marketing tie-ins and promotions. PepsiCo announced a new line of soft drink, a variant of Mountain Dew named Game Fuel, branded with the Halo 3 logo and the Master Chief. Much of the advertising focused on appealing to the general public, rather than just hardcore fans of the game; for example, some 7-Eleven stores advertised Halo 3 and sold specialty cups and copies of the game.

Halo 3 was released in three separate retail versions, branded as "Standard", "Limited" and "Legendary" editions. The Standard Edition contains the game disc, manual, and a small poster with the game's control-map and artwork. The Limited Edition, contained in a metal case, contains the game disc, manual, poster, Xbox 360 bonus disc with featurettes, and a hardcover-bound "Bestiarum", a collection of information and art covering the species, cultures, and civilizations of Halo 3. The Legendary Edition contains the game disc, manual, poster, interactive bonus disc, the Bestiarum on a DVD, Legendary DVD containing exclusive content, and a scale replica of the Master Chief's helmet as a case for the three discs. The slip-cover packaging unfolds into a large heavy-stock poster of Master Chief. Gamestation stores in the UK offered a limited edition Master Chief figurine to the first 1000 preorders.

Upon release, some of the Limited Edition versions of Halo 3 were found to have a defect in the hub that kept the discs in place, which could lead to scratched discs. Microsoft confirmed the problem and offered to replace scratched Halo 3 Limited Edition discs free of charge until the end of January 2008. This was not a problem in either the Legendary Edition or the Standard Edition.