It's being billed as the biggest day in entertainment history.
When "Halo 3" comes out Tuesday, the video game is expected to pull in more than $150 million in sales in 24 hours. By comparison, "Spider-Man 3" blitzed box-office records when it took in $151 million at theaters during its three-day opening weekend in May.
So are games really a bigger business than movies? Not quite.
Although the revenues from games have grown rapidly in the last few years, they are dwarfed by the sums of money generated by Hollywood blockbusters.
Much has been made of the increasing similarities between games and movies, but actually their economics remain far apart.
"It's apples and oranges," said Jim Ward, who straddles both worlds as senior vice president of Lucasfilm and president of LucasArts, the company's video game division. "You have different price points, different distribution models, different business models. To me, the only thing they have in common is that they're both entertainment experiences."
Movie budgets, for example, regularly careen into the hundreds of millions of dollars, whereas game budgets rarely break $30 million. That's a fraction of the amount studios spend on marketing alone.
Movies also generate far more revenue, largely because they have sales outlets other than theaters. Games have one shot -- at retail. As a result, the movie business is projected to hit $84.3 billion globally this year, more than double the $37.5 billion forecast for the game industry, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
What makes the video game business tantalizing is the potential profits. For Sony Corp., the estimated profit margin for "Spider-Man 3" is 46%, according to entertainment research firm SNL Kagan. Microsoft Corp., which publishes "Halo 3," has the potential to see a profit margin of 90% or more for the game, according to analysts.
Of course, not all movies and games see this type of return. Most games lose money. And the typical Hollywood studio generates overall margins in the 15% neighborhood, said Derek Baine, senior analyst at SNL Kagan. "Halo" and "Spider-Man" are considered major blockbusters that help make up for the losers and smaller bets.
So how does "Spider-Man's" Peter Parker stack up against Master Chief, the hero protagonist of the "Halo" franchise?
