Halo 2 global sales pass five million units

Microsoft has released a swathe of new figures related to Bungie's Xbox opus, Halo 2, revealing that the title has now sold over five million units worldwide and become the most popular game in the history of Xbox Live.

The five million unit mark has been surpassed in around three weeks, beating the global sales figure of the original Halo which took over two years to reach and bringing total sales of the franchise (including the PC version) to over 11 million units.

News of Halo 2's success comes as Microsoft revealed its sales projections for the Xbox console through to next June, with Bloomberg this week reporting that the company is hoping to ship 20 million units of the console by that point.

As well as the retail sales data, a plethora of Xbox Live statistics reveals that gamers have clocked up some 28 million hours playing Halo 2 online since its launch, making it more popular than any other game on the service, with over 900,000 players trying the game out online.

According to today's figures, gamers play the game online in sessions averaging around 91 minutes - which, Microsoft helpfully points out, is about the same length as most major film releases.