Epics much-hyped Gears
of War, which cost an estimated $10 million USD to make, has sold over 1 million copies in its first two weeks of availability. The breakneck
selling pace for Gears of War makes
it the fastest-selling game yet for Microsoft's year-old Xbox 360 console.
While topping 1 million units sold is quite impressive, it
comes nowhere close to matching Halo 2
which sold an impressive 2.5 million copies in just 24 hours. Reuters reports:
Halo
2", however, had the benefit of building on the successful formula of its
predecessor, and it also came three years into the life of the original Xbox,
meaning there was a bigger pool of potential buyers. By contrast, "Gears
of War" is an all-new game and arrived just a year after the Xbox 360 hit
the market. Its price tag is 20 percent higher than that of "Halo 2"
when it was launched.
And for the Gears of
War faithful out there, the inevitable has been confirmed -- there
are sequels for the game in the works. "The goal of this ad is to
establish Marcus Fenix as the hero of the Gears of War trilogy," said Jeff
Bell, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Global Marketing for the
Interactive Entertainment Business unit. Epic's Mark Rein was even more blunt
when it comes to sequels:
Gears
is a trilogy? If we can keep making quality games that fans obviously then why
would we have to stop at three? I don't see the Metal Gear Solid, Mario, Grand
Theft Auto or Final Fantasy series (among others) stopping at three and they're
still delivering compelling entertainment content that's easily worth the money
(see Unreal Tournament as well). There's definitely, as many of you have
pointed out, a lot more to learn about what's really happening on the plant
Sera and in the lives of the members of Delta Squad.
Microsoft and Epic have a hit on their hands with Gears of
War and they are going to do everything in their power to keep the fire
burning. Gears of War has already
become the most-played
game on Xbox Live with 850,000 unique users battling it out in over 10
million gameplay sessions.