CoreMagazine.com has posted an interview with Microsoft games division vice president Ed Fries, responsible for the Xbox, and Yutaka Haruki, Japanese Xbox division manager. There are a few notes about the reduction in hard drive size, and the reduction of the Xbox's controller size (in Japan), but Halo also gets a mention when they asked Fries about the Xbox in the Japanese market:

Question: Do you think the predominately American software lineup will be accepted in Japan?

Fries: In the United States, 70% of the people who have reserved an Xbox also reserved the game Halo. We expect a similar figure in the Japanese market. In terms of boosting Japanese developer support, we've hired Toshiyuki Miyata from Sony to oversee localized development.

While we still don't know exactly how many Xbox preorders there have been, this does seem to solidify Halo's position as one of the Xbox's system-selling titles.