NEW YORK - MICROSOFT geared up for the midnight release of Halo 3, the acclaimed alien shooter game that it hopes will widen its lead over Sony in the battle for industry dominance.

While some aficionados lined up before dawn at a Best Buy store on New York's Fifth Avenue to grab a good seat for the launch extravaganza, others took advantage of the retailer's offer to let them pay for a copy of the game and pick it up at midnight or the next day.

By late afternoon on Monday, only about 30 people were waiting outside the store - far short of the hundreds who had queued for other big consumer debuts this year, such as the last Harry Potter book or Apple's iPhone.

Nonetheless, Halo 3 is seen to be the US$30 billion (S$45 billion) video game industry's equivalent of a new Potter book and Microsoft is counting on the science-fiction game to push its money-losing entertainment unit into profitability.

'This is a critical holiday in terms of winning the next-generation console fight versus our competition and nobody has anything to go up and match Halo,' said Mr Shane Kim, vice-president of Microsoft Game Studios.

Gaming retail chain GameStop said the title set a record for advance orders, while Microsoft expects initial demand to surpass that for 2004's Halo 2, which racked up US$125 million in its first 24 hours.

The first two Halo games have sold a combined 15 million copies and cemented Microsoft as a serious player in a video game industry that was dominated by Sony's PlayStation 2.

Halo 3 is targeted firmly at the core Xbox audience of young males, for whom realistic combat games are a staple. It does little to widen the machine's appeal to a more casual audience that is being courted with tremendous success by Nintendo's Wii console.

The title is 'not necessarily going to move a lot of new systems like the first Halo did,' said Mr Dan Hsu, editor-in-chief of the EGM gaming magazine.

'At the same time, with all the marketing blitz and hype, consumers will be out there,' Mr Hsu said, 'and if they are thinking video games, they are thinking one of two things: Halo or the Wii.' -- REUTERS