'Halo 5: Guardians' is scheduled for an Oct. 20 release and Microsoft is leaving no stone unturned to push its global sales into eSports further, despite the fact that the 'Halo' franchise has earned over $3.5 billion from global sales for the Redmond-based company. Recently, Microsoft announced that its Halo Championship Series will see players contending for the $1 million prize money - last year the amount was $150,000.

A report in IB Times states that 'Halo 5: Guardians' is the 12th first-person shooter game in the series. It was originally createed by Bungie and developed by 343 Industries. SuperData Research claims that the latest multiplayer potentials planned for the upcoming game provides evidence of a booming eSports industry, which is expected to generate $612 million in revenue globally in 2015 alone.

As competitors such as Blizzard Activision's 'Call of Duty' franchise are also shifting to eSports, it has become necessary for Microsoft to step up the competitive 'Halo' scene in a major way.

Talking to the New York Times, eSports CEO and a former Microsoft executive, Rahul Sood said, "The bottom line is all game developers everywhere are looking for ways to turn their games into eSports titles."

Currently, 'DotA 2' is doing extremely well in eSports. An international competition of the game, also called Ti5, is being held this week, with a total prize money pool of more than $18 million. Players are competing before millions of fans, who are tuning in from all over the world.

According to Bonnie Ross, the chief of the Microsoft game studio, 343 Industries, "The pros who play eSports are famous." He added, "They're icons who people who look up to. These are people that fans aspire to be."

With a huge title in eSports, it is expected that Microsoft will also be able to push the sales of its Xbox consoles, which are currently trailing behind Sony PlayStation 4 by more than half.