Looking at game sales over the past half-year, you'd think the market would be saturated with shooters, particularly military-style shooters. After the success of games like Halo 3, The Orange Box, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Crysis, and Turok, you'd think people would cool down in their shooter buying. Conventional wisdom says there's only so much money to go around for these titles, right?

Well, it turns out conventional wisdom is very wrong in this case, and March 2008 is the proof. One of the top titles for the month was Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2, the latest game in the long running tactical shooter series. If the game's release was somehow dulled by other shooters that hit the market in the past few months it sure didn't show, as the game is turning into one of Ubisoft's most successful ever.

We talked with Tony Key, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Ubisoft, and found out why smart money is on Rainbow.

Welcome to Las Vegas
According to the NPD, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for Xbox 360 and PS3 occupied the second and sixteenth slots, respectively, in the top 20 games overall for March. This also made the game the best selling Xbox 360 and third best selling PS3 product for the month. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 has sold 750,000 copies on the Xbox 360 in the U.S. alone.

Oftentimes it's asked whether a sequel can match the output of its predecessor, but Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 has really put that question to rest. The first Rainbow Six Vegas was an early next-gen game, and it sold 614,000 copies within a couple of months. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 comes out at a time when the next-gen (really current-gen now) consoles are in full swing, and it's already exceeded sales of two million in a matter of weeks.

"Since its inception 10 years ago, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six has been one of our top selling brands," commented Key. "The Vegas series ushered the brand into next-gen as one of the best sellers in Holiday 2006. Today, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is going strong and has definitely surpassed our expectations, far exceeding the launch of Vegas 1. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is our second most successful launch ever for Ubisoft (behind Assassins Creed) and we're thrilled it has encouraged more gamers to give Clancy games a try."

Always plenty of terrorists to cap in Vegas
Rainbow Six is a franchise that's always had a solid online multiplayer component, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 lives up to that reputation. There are plenty of new maps and adversarial modes to keep Special Forces wannabes satisfied. Players could even use the Xbox Live Vision camera or a PlayStation Eye to put their face in the game.

Great squad based action

"[Online play] is certainly a big reason for the popularity of the game," stated Key. "Since the Xbox Live service launched in 2002, a Tom Clancy game has consistently been among the top five most-played games and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is keeping the tradition alive. In Vegas 2, the Montreal Studio has taken the award winning online play from Vegas 1 and made it a deeper, richer experience."

"However, the single player campaign has strong appeal as well," he continued. "Vegas 1 ended with a cliffhanger ending and Vegas 2 completes the story. It is also the last time that the Rainbow squad will visit Sin City. The setting of Las Vegas was definitely part of the appeal and this is the last chance gamers will have to blow up a slot machine or take down baddies in a strip club."

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2's story sort of serves as both a sequel and prequel to the first Rainbox Six Vegas. While series fans are no doubt interested to find out what happened, some reviewers argued that the campaign mode was abrupt and disappointing. Still, the game featured drop in-drop out co-op, and that certainly pleased some fans. "This is a great example of how the dev team took what was great in Vegas 1 and took it to the next level," added Key about co-op. "We've received a lot of positive feedback on this feature already. After all taking down terrorists is fun but doing it with a friend is better!"

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