Later launch-box print — Brutus insert, 1201 manual

Same carton, later paper. The box is from the same printing as the first print — 0901 Part No. X08-54526, plain cover, no star — but the contents are not:

• Instruction booklet 1201 Part No. X08-51900 (December 2001) instead of the 0901 booklet.
• A Brutus insert, 1001 Part No. X08-56362, instead of the Master Chief insert.
• The same left-Warthog disc, 0901 Part No. X08-54601.

So the box was printed in September 2001 and this copy was packed in December 2001 or later. Read the booklet's code: it is the only thing separating this from the launch copy.

Sealed copies with a stuck-on gold star belong here. Some sealed examples of this assembly carry a Game of the Year! label applied to the shrinkwrap rather than printed on the cover. Under the wrap the box and the contents are identical to this row, so there is no separate record for them.

Second place here is a claim about the paper inside, not about the carton. The box is the same printing as the first print, and if you own a sealed copy with no view of the booklet you cannot tell the two apart.

It is recorded because the distinction is real on an opened copy, and because a collector buying a "first print" wants to know that the plain cover alone does not prove one.

The retail UPC is left blank on purpose. GameFAQs and retroplace both give the 2001 North American SKU as F78-00001 with barcode 659556745158, while VGCollect puts F78-00002 / 659556745165 on its retail entries and F78-00001 / 659556745158 on the Not for Resale ones. Those cannot all be right, and a photograph of a launch box's barcode will settle it faster than more reading.

Source: Desk research across public catalogs and disc databases — Brandon Green (from VGCollect, Redump, Halopedia, Wikipedia and PriceCharting, October 2026).