Strategy is successful

Mar 20, 2009 07:29 GMT  ·  By

Real Time Strategy games are extremely popular on the PC. Just take a lot at the recent PC sales charts, which are currently dominated by three top strategy titles: Dawn of War II, Empire: Total War and Red Alert 3 Uprising.

But a lot of modern RTS games are also launched for consoles, some of them even being exclusive to said platforms, like the recently released Halo Wars title that appeared on Microsoft's Xbox 360. Considered Ensemble Studios' magnum opus, it was the first in the Halo franchise to branch out from the traditional First Person Shooter genre and take on a more strategic overview on the battles before the first Halo title.

We've already heard Microsoft say that it pins high hopes on the strategy title, but now it seems that these expectations have been met, as the North American company announced that Halo Wars sold over a million copies worldwide, showcasing that even strategy games could be popular if they had a successful brand attached to them, like Halo.

Microsoft also says that it is the best-selling RTS that has appeared on this generation of consoles, and has released a few interesting tidbits about the popularity that the title is enjoying ever since its launch. 2.6 million multiplayer matches have been played ever since the game was released, with a total of 118 years’ worth of time spent on Xbox Live by gamers playing the title. Also, everyday, almost 200,000 players join the epic battles between the UNSC and the Covenant in the game.

All in all, it seems that a lot of Halo fans have enjoyed this RTS take on their beloved franchise and will play it for quite some time. Too bad though that Ensemble was shut down as soon as Halo Wars was finished and didn't have a chance to enjoy the success of its hard work.