Halo 3 beats COD on Live in 2009

By Tom Bramwell Published 11 January, 2010

Plus Indie, Xbox, XBLA and GfW lists.

Halo 3 was the most popular game on Xbox Live in 2009, but spots 2-4 in the list were occupied by the last three Call of Duty games.

That's according to Major Nelson's blog, which is running down the top 20 Xbox Live games of 2009 in various categories.

In the retail games list, Halo 3 led from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, with Modern Warfare 2 in at three based on a couple of months - suggesting it was the most intensively played game all year - followed by Call of Duty: World at War and Gears of War 2.

Grand Theft Auto IV, Left 4 Dead, Halo 3: ODST, Fable II Episode 1 (the download title) and the Japanese version of Resident Evil 5 rounded out the top 10, although the US/European Resident Evil 5 also appeared in the list at 12.

Interestingly, while the Left 4 Dead 2 demo made the top 20, there's no sign of the retail game. Viva Pinata is another notable absentee.

Elsewhere, Battlefield 1943 was the best-selling Xbox Live Arcade title followed by the evergreen Castle Crashers, Trials HD, Hasbro Family Game Night (which is cheating, since it's several separate games) and Shadow Complex.

In the world of Indie Games, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 won out, followed by Avatar Drop, RC-AirSim, Headshot and Miner Dig Deep.

Finally, GTAIV was the most popular Games for Windows Live title, and Halo 2 was the top original Xbox title. Check out Major Nelson's blog for the full top 20 lists in each category.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (13) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Emmit_Assassin #1 2 years ago

    Strange that COD4 was beat by H3 personally I'd have thought COD4 would have won that one. Whilst I'm no Halo fan, good to see it doing well despite some not so great reviews.
    Good on 'I made a game with zombies', loved it!

  • muscleblade #2 2 years ago

    "Whilst I'm no Halo fan, good to see it doing well despite some not so great reviews. "

    Halo 3 is one of the highest rated games of all time!!

    I skipped L4D2 myself as AC2 and MW2 took up most of my gaming time in Nov/Dec.

  • bad09 #3 2 years ago

    Not surprised GTA4 is top on GFWL it's been offered at silly prices this winter. Seeing Gears 1 still in there makes me want to try that again on my new rig, it's quite good on PC :)

    Have to admit it is weird more are playing H3 than MW. Mind you it always changes between the two if I remember correctly.

    EDIT - "I skipped L4D2"

    For the love of what god you believe in WHY????

    / Jumps on muscleblade's back
    / Leads him into acid spit

    Edited by 2 at 11/01/10 @ 09:02

  • kipper #4 2 years ago

    What I would like is a monthly list of, let's say top 50 most popular online games, including retail and XBLA, showing how many players are online at any time on average. Thus you can seewhat the chances of getting into an impromptu game are, and thus whether it is worth buying that older multiplayer game at all.

    For example, as far as I can tell when searching for a game, Alien Breed Evolution is far more popular in single player than online co-op.

  • altitude2k #5 2 years ago

    This is where the CoD franchise bites itself in the ass. When you spill milk it spreads wide, but very thin. CoD4 probably would have topped this list if it wasn't for WaW or MW2.

    Regardless, it's still a much more impressive achievement for Halo 3 to be at the top given that it was well over 2 years old at the beginning of last year. Very much deserved.

  • SixFootHalfling #6 2 years ago

    "This is where the CoD franchise bites itself in the ass. When you spill milk it spreads wide, but very thin. CoD4 probably would have topped this list if it wasn't for WaW or MW2. "

    True, but from Activisons point of view 3 x £40 > 1 x £40, so they won't really be bothered by who plays which, as long as you buy all 3

  • altitude2k #7 2 years ago

    @SixFootHalfling

    Which makes it fairly strange that I always see the term Micro$oft banded around and never Activi$ion...

  • ziggy_played_guitar #8 2 years ago

    "good to see it doing well despite some not so great reviews. "

    huh?
    Note_to_emmit: comments section on EG.net do not qualify as reviews, more like "opinions from ppl who didn't even play the game but have some strong-esoteric feelings towards very comercially sucessful games".

  • RedSparrows #9 2 years ago

    Damn straight, Halo 4 EVA.

    /ahem

  • secombe #10 2 years ago

    No Games on Demand stats then, is that because they haven't sold any yet?

  • Emmit_Assassin #11 2 years ago

    Please re-read my post. I said 'some reviews'. I read a few reviews on Halo 3, and they weren't exactly glowing. So in my personal experience, it didn't do that well. I also take peoples personal opinions into account. Most pro reviewers are in someone or others pocket, and so can't really be trusted.
    Just like the fact that COD:MW2 had great reviews, but has been generally slated by us normal people for one reason or another.

  • symmetry #12 2 years ago

    It says at the top of Major Nelson's blog: based on UU’s. That's Unique Users, so they aren't counting it based on total play time.

    I would like to see a top 20 based on time played rather than unique users as Halo 3 was bundled with an awful lot of Xbox 360s and I imagine a lot of people (like me) dipped their toe into Halo 3 multiplayer and decided they didn't like it that much.

  • DirtyDubs #13 2 years ago

    Surprised that Halo3 beat COD4 myself. Have both games and Halo would be my preference but maybe if MW2 didn't come out until 2010, MW would be number 1 for 2009.

    Good to see BF1943 did well. Still play that now but would love a few more maps. Didn't think GTA4 would be a big online game. Thought it wasn't great myself. Haven't touched online in that game after a couple of hours put in.