Halo 3 Smashes Entertainment Records

Microsoft's gaming division could soon turn a profit, thanks to the smashing success of Halo 3. Redmond reports the franchise has made history as one of the biggest entertainment launches of all time, with more than $300 million in sales during its first week on store shelves.

Halo 3, the conclusion to the epic Halo trilogy, picks up where Halo 2 left off, answering questions about the fates of the protagonist Master Chief and his artificial intelligence sidekick Cortana as they struggle to save humankind from destruction at the hands of the alien coalition known as the Covenant.

"Halo is truly a cultural phenomenon, and the launch of Halo 3 is an important milestone for Xbox 360 and for video games as entertainment and as an art form," Gates said in a statement.

Breaking All the Records

Gates went on to say that Halo 3 embodies Microsoft's "vision for the future of entertainment," where some of the world's greatest creative minds will deliver a "new generation of interactive storytelling."

Halo 3 is staking its claim as the most popular Xbox Live game in history. Microsoft reports that more than 2.7 million gamers have played Halo 3 on Xbox Live in the first week. That accounts for about one-third of the seven million Xbox Live members worldwide.

In fact, within the first day of its launch, Halo 3 players worldwide racked up more than 3.6 million hours of online play, which increased more than eleven-fold to 40 million hours by the end of the first week. Also its first week, Halo 3 drove a record number of Xbox Live Gold Memberships as...