Nick Wingfield reports in today’s Wall Street Journal that Microsoft will launch its new video game Halo 3 on September 25th. While much of Wingfield’s article explores the advertising and marketing related issues with the game’s launch, I thought there were also some interesting nuggets for media policy types:

– Gamers have pre-ordered over one million copies. [like George Carlin, I think the use of the prefix 'pre' is incorrect here: they just ordered the games] Think about that — kind of makes the BBC iplayer* and similar product or service launches look quite small, huh?

– Halo and Halo 2 combined for sales of around $600 million. That’s obviously a very large figure but also understates the popularity of the games to some extent because they can be — and are — played over and over again. We reported back in April 2007 that Halo 2 had over 800 million hours of online play as of that date.

– Halo 3 is ‘mature-rated’ under a self-regulatory system. Europe has a similar system. However, as anyone with kids in their family knows, these action games are very popular with kids. My nephews will certainly play the game, despite being underage.

Anyway, these games raise all kinds of media policy issues: (i) self-regulation and media literacy; (ii) convergence and the applicability of existing laws and regulations, including the new AVMS Directive; (iii) advertising; (iv) protection of children, including obesity issues. It’s probably long overdue for Ofcom to undertake an in-depth research project into this issue. It would be money well-spent.

*I still don’t understand why Apple has not sued the BBC for breach of trademark.