[STEAM] Halo: Campaign Evolved was the 4th most popular game on Xbox at launch in the US but only 29th on PS5, analyst says

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had a strong launch day in the US, but you may or may not be surprised to hear that it appears to have been more popular on its home turf than on PS5.

According to analyst Mat Piscatella, Circana's player engagement tracker shows that on July 28 – Halo: Campaign Evolved's proper release date after leaving its advanced access ******* – it came in fourth place on the US's ranking of daily active users on Xbox. Although it might have missed out on the bronze medal, Piscatella notes that "8% of total Xbox players on that date launched the game," which is obviously an enormous number.

These percentages go down when you look at the game's day-one performance on Steam and PS5. Piscatella reports that its daily active users placed it in 14th place on Steam, with 2% of daily active users launching it, while it was in 29th place on PS5, with 1% of daily active users giving it their time.

Of course, while the figures might appear smaller, it's worth noting that they're not totally comparable. Different platforms have varying user bases – 1% of daily Steam users isn't the same number as 1% of daily PlayStation users, for example. It does give an indication of each platform's priorities, though – clearly, the US-based Xbox user base has a larger proportion of folks who care about Halo enough to play it on day one than the US-based PlayStation fandom.

According to Circana's Player Engagement Tracker, on July 28th Halo: Campaign Evolved ranked 4th in US DAU on Xbox platforms (8% of total Xbox players on that date launched the game), while placing 14th on Steam (2% of actives) and 29th on PlayStation (1% of actives).

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (

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What is easier to compare is the amount of time players on different platforms spent playing the game. "The average console player engaged with Halo: Campaign Evolved for over 2 hours" on its main release date of July 28, Piscatella says, while your average Steam player spent "a little over 1 hour in the game."

Piscatella gets ahead of one console war-fuelled interpretation of these stats as he says: "The game is currently at the top of the PlayStation Store's best-sellers list, so it's doing fine on PlayStation. What this does show is the massive challenge for new games in an environment dominated by the live service behemoths."

It'd also be totally understandable if Campaign Evolved did have more players on Xbox than PlayStation – while the novelty of Halo coming to PS5 is very cool, chances are that most diehard fans of the series already own an Xbox console, and the game is playable via a Game Pass Ultimate subscription to boot, making it even more appealing to those already subscribed to give it a whirl at no extra cost. It'll certainly earn more fans via its PS5 release, but they're probably more likely to be new ones than returning veterans.

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