'Halo 4' Earned $220 Million In One Day

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Halo's Master Chief is on another winning spree for Microsoft.

Last week's highly-anticipated release of "Halo 4" opened to $220 million in one day sales globally, making it the bestselling game of the year so far and bringing the franchise to an estimated $3 billion in sales.

In comparison, Ubisoft's "Assassin's Creed III," released October 30, earned at least $200 million in its first week.

According to Microsoft, "Halo 4" is expected to reach $300 million in sales in its first week.

The number wouldn't be a surprise, considering more than 10,000 stores in 40 countries opened last Tuesday at midnight for the game's release.

The basic copy of the game sells for roughly $59.99 in the U.S. while the Limited edition version of the game starts at $99.99.

Looking at the regular edition of the game, that's 3.7 million copies of the game alone.

Here's a look at what the other sequels in the series earned globally opening day:

Halo Reach (2010): $200 million / sold more than 3 million in its first month

Halo 3 (2007): $170 million / 3.3 million copies in its first 12 days

Halo 2 (2004): $125 million / 2.4 million copies
(At the time, Microsoft Vice President Peter Moore thought one-day sales of the game would total $100 million.)

Since 2001, the game has sold a total of 46 million units and has earned more than $3 billion in sales.

In April, original game creator Bungie said 235,182 years have been spent playing the video game.