The first Gears of War was a bit of a surprise in its success. It's not that the game's performance was completely unexpected, but the level of critical accolades Gears of War received combined with its sales success was quite impressive for a brand new IP. The Epic Games developed title really helped provide a personality to the Xbox 360 in the days before Halo 3 released.
Because the stage had already been set, Gears of War 2 was not going to catch people off guard in the same way as its predecessor. Still, the fundamental gameplay was expected to be stellar and Epic's improvements to Unreal Engine 3 would be on display for all to revel in. Sure enough, Gears of War 2 has released and may have proven itself to be the second strongest Xbox 360 exclusive franchise.
We discuess the game's success so far with Guy Welch, global product manager for Gears of War 2 at Microsoft.
Gears are Golden
According to the NPD, Gears of War 2 sold 1.56 million copies during the month of November. This made it the best selling title, Xbox 360 or otherwise, during the important holiday sales month. Microsoft has confirmed that the title sold 2 million worldwide in its first week and has since gone on to break the 3 million sales barrier.
Gears of War 2 Gallery
Gears of War 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 4.7 million-selling blockbuster third-person tactical action game, and one of the most popular Xbox 360 games in history. Gears of War 2 picks up six months after the events of Gears of War, and thrusts you back into a deep and harrowing story of humankind's epic battle for survival against a nightmarish force of underground creatures known as the Locust Horde. (Screenshot 1 of 36)
Gears of War 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 4.7 million-selling blockbuster third-person tactical action game, and one of the most popular Xbox 360 games in history. Gears of War 2 picks up six months after the events of Gears of War, and thrusts you back into a deep and harrowing story of humankind's epic battle for survival against a nightmarish force of underground creatures known as the Locust Horde. (Screenshot 2 of 36)
Gears of War 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 4.7 million-selling blockbuster third-person tactical action game, and one of the most popular Xbox 360 games in history. Gears of War 2 picks up six months after the events of Gears of War, and thrusts you back into a deep and harrowing story of humankind's epic battle for survival against a nightmarish force of underground creatures known as the Locust Horde. (Screenshot 3 of 36)
Gears of War 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 4.7 million-selling blockbuster third-person tactical action game, and one of the most popular Xbox 360 games in history. Gears of War 2 picks up six months after the events of Gears of War, and thrusts you back into a deep and harrowing story of humankind's epic battle for survival against a nightmarish force of underground creatures known as the Locust Horde. (Screenshot 4 of 36)
Gears of War 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 4.7 million-selling blockbuster third-person tactical action game, and one of the most popular Xbox 360 games in history. Gears of War 2 picks up six months after the events of Gears of War, and thrusts you back into a deep and harrowing story of humankind's epic battle for survival against a nightmarish force of underground creatures known as the Locust Horde. (Screenshot 5 of 36)
Gears of War 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 4.7 million-selling blockbuster third-person tactical action game, and one of the most popular Xbox 360 games in history. Gears of War 2 picks up six months after the events of Gears of War, and thrusts you back into a deep and harrowing story of humankind's epic battle for survival against a nightmarish force of underground creatures known as the Locust Horde. (Screenshot 6 of 36)
Gears of War 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 4.7 million-selling blockbuster third-person tactical action game, and one of the most popular Xbox 360 games in history. Gears of War 2 picks up six months after the events of Gears of War, and thrusts you back into a deep and harrowing story of humankind's epic battle for survival against a nightmarish force of underground creatures known as the Locust Horde. (Screenshot 7 of 36)
Gears of War 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 4.7 million-selling blockbuster third-person tactical action game, and one of the most popular Xbox 360 games in history. Gears of War 2 picks up six months after the events of Gears of War, and thrusts you back into a deep and harrowing story of humankind's epic battle for survival against a nightmarish force of underground creatures known as the Locust Horde. (Screenshot 8 of 36)
Gears of War 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 4.7 million-selling blockbuster third-person tactical action game, and one of the most popular Xbox 360 games in history. Gears of War 2 picks up six months after the events of Gears of War, and thrusts you back into a deep and harrowing story of humankind's epic battle for survival against a nightmarish force of underground creatures known as the Locust Horde. (Screenshot 9 of 36)
Gears of War 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 4.7 million-selling blockbuster third-person tactical action game, and one of the most popular Xbox 360 games in history. Gears of War 2 picks up six months after the events of Gears of War, and thrusts you back into a deep and harrowing story of humankind's epic battle for survival against a nightmarish force of underground creatures known as the Locust Horde. (Screenshot 10 of 36)
"In addition to the 2 million copies of Gears of War 2 that flew off the shelves over the weekend, Live was pretty active as well. More than 1.5 million people signed into Gears of War 2 during the weekend, racking up a total 15 million gameplay hours and helping set a new record for concurrent Live players," announced Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb in November. "These players also collectively unlocked more than 19 million GoW2 Achievements."
This sales pace is actually faster than the first Gears of War, when the title took over two weeks to reach the million plateau, which made it the fastest selling Xbox title at the time. It would take over two months for Gears of War to sell 3 million. While Gears of War would eventually sell over 5 million copies, we think Gears of War 2 will reach that mark and surpass it in relatively short order.
"The original Gears of War was the fastest-selling next-generation game of 2006, selling more than 2 million units worldwide that Holiday, and now well over 5 million copies sold to date," said Welch. "With Gears of War 2, the game has sold over 4 million units in the first two months, doubling the pace of the original."
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