Resident Evil 5 Demo Breaks Xbox Download Record

The Xbox 360 demo for Resident Evil 5 was downloaded 1.8 million times in the week following its January 26 release in Europe and North America, setting a new record.

In fact, Microsoft says the demo surpassed 1.3 million downloads in its first three days.

And while Microsoft merely referred to Resident Evil 5 as being "among the top demo

launches on the service," the previous known record holder, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, took eight days for its demo to reach a million Xbox Live downloads.

During those initial three days, the free zombie-shooting demo was restricted to Xbox Live Gold members. After January 29, it was made available to all Xbox Live members, with the PlayStation 3 demo available today via the PlayStation Store.

The strong North American and European performance follows that of the earlier Japanese demo, which was downloaded by 53% of Xbox Live Gold members in Japan.

Developed by Capcom, Resident Evil 5 hits PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on March 13.