Microsoft has 300 million reasons to celebrate the launch of Halo 3, a title which in only a few days from its appearance has already managed to break some important records like the fastest selling game of all time, cashing in at over 300 million dollars in sales in only 7 days. Just as Microsoft expected, Halo 3 surpassed Spiderman’s 3 sales.

The most important thing for the Redmond-based company is, according to retailers all around the globe, that after launching the game, Xbox 360’s sales doubled. In fact, this is the primary thing Microsoft wanted, to “resuscitate” the Xbox 360 sales.

Throughout this year, Nintendo Wii topped competitors month after month when it came to sale numbers, thus posing a real problem for Microsoft.

After running out of promoting methods such as new versions and price cuts, Microsoft had only one last hope to regain the lost ground before Nintendo Wii.

Apparently, the famous franchise that also drove Xbox sales upwards in the past has done its job once more.

For Microsoft the success of Halo 3 was essential from a financial standpoint due to the loss of over one billion dollars that came with the Xbox’s warranty extension.

Prior to its launch, the analysts estimated that Halo 3 would boost sales to around 400,000 Xbox 360 units, an important benchmark in an off-season sales month.

In August, in the USA, due to price reduction and the launch of the Madden NFL and Bioshock games Microsoft sold 276,000 units after selling only 170,000 in July.

In that same month Microsoft only managed to sell 11,288 units in Japan. Taking into consideration the fact that Halo 3 was launched on September 25, the first real information regarding the impact it had on sales will come starting with November.

However, if the preliminary numbers are correct, then Microsoft might even exceed the 400,000 units anticipated and at the same time will overtake the Nintendo Wii during the holiday season.

Nevertheless it will remain to be seen for how long Halo 3 will succeed to sustain the Xbox 360’s sales. It will be just an one month hit or the halo of Halo 3 will end sometimes at the beginning of the next year? Let’s wait and see!