As anticipated, Microsoft’s “system seller” Halo 3 brought the company more than $170 million in the first day of availability, surpassing by far its predecessor (Halo 2, with “only” $125 million) and this year’s Spiderman 3 ($67 million).

The 10 million dollars Microsoft invested in the advertising campaign for Halo 3 are showing jaw-dropping results: the Xbox 360-exclusive first person shooter is now officially the record holder for the most successful launch of a media product in the US. The $170 million Halo 3 reaped in the first day of availability will certainly skyrocket the Xbox division’s revenues, bringing the troubled gaming console closer to its profitability target set for later this year/early 2008. Due to heavy competition with Nintendo Wii and Sony’s PS3 and some officially recognized overheating problems, which have determined the Redmond behemoth to generously extend the Xbox 360 warranty period to three years, the Xbox division inside Microsoft is still in a period of heavy financial “bleedings”- which the company hopes to stop using the massive Halo 3…halo.

“Halo 3 has become a pop-culture phenomenon,” said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios. “Not only is “Halo 3” setting sales records, it’s also redefining entertainment.

Within the first 20 hours alone, we’ve seen more than a million Xbox LIVE members come online to play Halo 3 – that makes September 25 the most active Xbox LIVE gaming day in history.”

Previous rumors about massive preorders eventually turned out to be true, as Microsoft also confirmed that Halo 2’s record of 1.4 million preorders went into oblivion, thanks to Halo 3’s achievement of more than 1.7 million.

More than 10,000 retailers hosted Midnight Madness events to celebrate the launch of this third installment in the billion-dollar franchise. In New York, Seattle, Miami and Los Angeles, Microsoft and retail partners hosted marquee launch events that featured contests and appearances by local celebrities and professional athletes who are fanatical about the “Halo” franchise, including Ludacris and Zac Efron and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

Bob McKenzie, Senior Vice President of Merchandising for GameStop Corp commented that, “With consumer demand for Halo 3 and related products, we expect it to be the biggest video game title generator in GameStop's history."

“The initial demand we’ve seen for ‘Halo 3’ has been astounding, and the game is on track to become the number one gaming title of all time. ‘Halo 3’ is a genuine entertainment phenomenon and our customers have responded very enthusiastically to the release,” said Jill Hamburger, vice president of movies and games at Best Buy.

The UK welcomed Masterchief’s “Finish the Fight” slogan with the same enthusiasm. Woolworths’ trading manager Gerry Berkley said that "Halo 3 has been flying off the shelves this morning. In the first two hours that our stores were open it sold thousands and thousands of copies, breaking all previous first morning sales records for a computer game.”

“If sales continue at this rapid pace, it could end up being the biggest ever first day sales number for an entertainment product, beating any CD, DVD or book that has gone before it," he added.

The impact of Halo 3’s positive halo is critical for sales of Xbox 360 and Microsoft plans to squeeze Masterchief’s charm at maximum in order to revigorate gamers’ interest for its console.

According to estimates from analyst group Compete, Microsoft’s advertising campaign for the third installment in the Halo saga did pay off, considering that as many as 300,000 Xbox 360 consoles might have been bought by customers in the period before the game’s launch, solely for the purpose of “finishing the fight”.

The group also analyzed gamers’ preference for one of the three “flavors” of Halo 3 and it appears that the Legendary edition (the one with the scratched discs) and the basic package were the most enticing. 40% of interest was devoted to the basic package, while 32% went to the Legendary edition.

"People appear to have gone to either extreme," said Compete. "The mid-priced Limited edition received a scant 22% of interest."

The interest gamers had in Microsoft's gaming rig before Halo 3's launch could also be explained through the $50 price drop operated by Microsoft last month.