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Now that the Gears of War 3 public multiplayer beta has ended, it’s time to take a look at the destruction it left in its wake. It’s not a big surprise that the beta turned out to be one of the most popular events on Xbox Live—Gears of War 3 is easily one of the biggest games of the year—but looking at the hard numbers, I wouldn’t blame you if you needed to pick your jaw off the floor. Throughout the beta, 145 countries participated in the fight, racking up an impressive 11 million matches completed. A whopping 927 million kills were tallied once the smoke cleared, and 23 billion bullets were fired over the course of the beta. The beta only lasted four weeks, and it wasn’t even accessible to everyone until partway through that time period. (Originally, it was only made available to those who purchased Bulletstorm). Of the aforementioned 927 million kills, 23 million of those were executed by chainsaw. Of the 1.29 million people who participated in the beta, 435,000 unlocked the beta-exclusive Thrashball Cole, which they will be able to use in the full game when it releases on September 20th.  But that’s not all. Microsoft also unveiled another incredible feat: pre-orders for Gears of War 3 have surpassed a million. To put things in perspective, this makes it the fastest pre-ordered Xbox game ever. I think it’s safe to say that Marcus Fenix’s next outing is officially the most anticipated one yet. |