...bit of a false number in that it's a year-over-year quarter comparison. And if you actually remember, this time last year we had this little title called "Halo 2" which came out...
Never heard of it.
So, a different way to think about it is the fact that we think that for the year, the home and entertainment revenues will grow between 35 and 45 percent. And that's substantially driven by the Xbox 360 business.
Do you expect that number to rise later this year when "Halo 3" comes out?
Good try!
Seriously, though, do you guys have a time frame as to when it might come out? A release window?
We saved it for this call. We are ready to announce it for the first time right now.
Awesome.
Are you ready?
Yeah.
You got the exclusive.
Let me guess: It's ready when it's done.
We'll launch it when it's ready. No, we haven't said anything more about that.
So the whole parrying-the-PlayStation-3-launch thing is not happening?
I didn't say that. Just didn't say we were saying today what we're doing with it.
I don't know if you read the latest issue of BusinessWeek, but there is a quote regarding the possibility that Microsoft is considering its own handheld product to compete against the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS.
It's just purely speculative.
A forecast from UBS analyst Michael Wallace said that you guys were going to be on target to ship 4.5 million Xbox 360s this year. Could you corroborate this?
I didn't see Mike's [forecast], but from our earnings call, we actually reconfirmed our estimate, or our projection that for our fiscal year ended June 30, we will have aggregate sales of between 4.5 million and 5.5 million. We have sold 1.5 million already.
The only number that seems to have been slightly off guidance was off by a couple of weeks' worth of manufacturing, and I guess the [analysts] are saying we're going to make it all up in the second half of the year. It's my job to worry, and I don't worry about this that much, because it just means that we're making it up and the momentum around the launch continues to be fantastic.
OK. Now...
I don't know if you had a chance — I'm sorry to interrupt — I don't know if you had a chance to focus on the game-attach data and some of those numbers.
I was going to say, I know there's a high game-attach rate, but critics have said that's only because that most 360 pre-orders were bundles. Do you expect that attach rate to continue once all 360 pre-orders are met and people can just buy the console unbundled off the shelves?
Well, early adopters just buy lots of games. It's not unusual to have bundles — the same kinds of things happen for every console at its launch. Maybe it's a little more this time — I don't really know. But it's not like that didn't happen when PS2 was launched or Xbox was launched or a bunch of things were launched.
Those guys [have] great appetites, and consumers who come in later, historically, don't have that same appetite. You'd expect the number to drop. But actually, once that number starts, it continues to grow over time because the existing install base continues to buy games and a new install base buys fresh games. So, you can see that number migrate, historically, from somewhere around a three-ish at this point in time up to, call it ten-ish, plus or minus, by the end of a cycle. So, it's always an upwardly moving number quarter over quarter.
Toward the end of your financial year (that ends on 30 June), which titles specifically do you expect to be your biggest sellers?
We're actually excited about Fight Night from EA. We're excited about Elder Scrolls 4, Oblivion from Bethesda, Ghost Recon (Advanced Warfighter) from Ubisoft, Dead Rising from Capcom, and...
