Halo Wars Demo Downloaded Over 2 Million Times, Sets New Record

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Microsoft has revealed that the downloadable demo for Ensemble Studios' Halo Wars was downloaded more than 2 million times in the week following its February 5 debut.

In addition, the Xbox 360 strategy game demo set a day-one record for demo downloads, and was said to be among Xbox Live's "top demo downloads of all time." The full version of Halo Wars hits North American retailers on March 3.

For those keeping track, that means Halo Wars beat out the Resident Evil 5 demo, which was downloaded 1.8 million times in its first week of availability. Microsoft did not specify if Halo Wars was able to achieve a million downloads in three days, as RE5 did.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 13, 2009 8:43 AM

    I wonder how many of those downloads are first time RTS players, and downloading it simply for the Halo name. This is obviously a good move by them, next up, HALO MMO!

    • reply
      February 13, 2009 8:45 AM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      February 13, 2009 8:49 AM

      The Halo community is so odd. I don't know where this StarWars-esque hard-on for the series/universe came from.

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        February 13, 2009 11:21 AM

        Marathon love from Bungie's original FPS?

        Halo being a Mac (primarily) and PC FPS when FPS's were at it's peak on the PC, also those original demos of it were awesome even if it was on a Mac (At Mac world with Steve Jobs saying 'we got games too' lol). Then Microsoft buying Bungie and converting it into a first party major launch title, which probably was among the best launch titles for a console (last good one I can think of was Mario 64).

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        February 13, 2009 3:05 PM

        Maybe it's legions of Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle Ringworld fans, who were "bait and switch"-ed into thinking this was some sort of unofficial adaptation?

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      February 13, 2009 8:59 AM

      halo MMO already got canceled before being officially announced.

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