Gears of War: 2 Million Copies, Six Weeks


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One of the advantages of having a year long head start in the console wars is the fact you get to show off your second-generation games against the competition. Gears of War is a good example of this: it uses every trick the 360 has to make game look and play great; it was also helpful that Microsoft worked so closely with Epic in developing the game. All this effort paid off, we gave the game a 9 when we reviewed it. More importantly for Microsoft though are the sale numbers, and those are likewise impressive. The title has sold 2 million units in the six weeks since its launch, easily becoming one of the most popular next-generation games.

The story isn't just in the sales numbers of the software itself though; Gears of War has been dominating Xbox Live since its release. Sandvine Incorporated has reported an 80 percent jump in hosts using Xbox Live, a significant spike in usage. There has also been a 30 percent jump in traffic increase in the service since November 7. While some of these numbers are due to the free 48-hour Xbox Live Gold trial included in the game, a good number of those users appear to have retained the service. While some of the bandwidth spike consumption is also due to the video download service launching, it's clear that Gears of War is doing a good job of bringing customers online.

This is the kind of software hit that Microsoft needs to combat Sony and Nintendo: a title that not only mobilizes existing customers, but moves systems and further brings those existing and new customers onto Microsoft's online pay service. This also helps Microsoft sell the 360 to game developers?neither the PS3 nor the Nintendo Wii could have sold a game in these numbers, simply because there aren't 2 million of those systems in the hands of consumers and may not be for some time. Twilight Princess sold at almost a 1:1 ratio with Wii hardware in November, and was only able to sell 412,00 units. The PS3 sold less than 200,000 units in total in November. In terms of installed base the 360 has an advantage that's going to take the competition a long time to neutralize.

Luckily for everyone involved Epic was forward thinking enough to add the surety of a sequel through the ending cinematic of the game, so the money train won't be stopping with the first game. With sales this high even before the buying rush of Christmas this game may threaten even Halo's supremacy as Microsoft's premier franchise.

source.pngArs Technica

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2 Million Copies Sold, yet when you host your own ranked matches on XBox Live, the first few rounds you host take anywhere up to 10 minutes to fill up??? And this is on a Saturday...

It eventually gets better as you get a cool group of guys that just keep joining you, but they need to fix that system and just let you invite people on your friends list. Everyone by now already knows just search by type of match, number of rounds etc., to join your friends anyway, so they are not avoiding what they wanted to avoid.

Good for them, 2 million copies sold is amazing do not get me wrong, but it just would not appear that two million people own the game for how long a ranked match sometimes takes to fill up.

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well, ive still never even played a single online match...just because 2 million sold, doesnt mean 2 million are playing it online

:::nice to see you finally posting gaming news in their proper sections, instead of duping me and others when you post in BPN :p

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2 Million Copies Sold, yet when you host your own ranked matches on XBox Live, the first few rounds you host take anywhere up to 10 minutes to fill up??? And this is on a Saturday...

It eventually gets better as you get a cool group of guys that just keep joining you, but they need to fix that system and just let you invite people on your friends list. Everyone by now already knows just search by type of match, number of rounds etc., to join your friends anyway, so they are not avoiding what they wanted to avoid.

Good for them, 2 million copies sold is amazing do not get me wrong, but it just would not appear that two million people own the game for how long a ranked match sometimes takes to fill up.

2 million sold 1.9mil trying to host .1mil joining random games :).

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