Epic Games' flagship 360 shooter Gears of War has sold over three million copies worldwide in just ten weeks, putting it well on course to smash the sales figure set by legendary Xbox shooter Halo, which has sold five million copies since its release in 2001.
The news of Gears' latest milestone comes from Microsoft's own Larry Hryb, who reveals that the Epic shooter has helped the Xbox 360 muscle 51% market share in the United States for December 2006, and expand the population of Xbox Live users to over five million, with a collosal three billion game hours logged to date.
Of course, it's not the first trumping Gears of War has given the Bungie shooter franchise in the last 12 months. The 360 opus has already overtaken the mighty Halo 2 as the most popular game on Xbox Live.
It's a remarkable achievement for a debut franchise and sales are showing no sign of slowing - but Gears still has a way to go before it's crowned as the best selling Xbox game of all time. For that, it would have to beat the record set by the second Halo game, which has thus far managed to flog over eight million copies worldwide.
Will it beat Halo 2's record? We'll keep you up to speed as it races up the sales ladder.