Gears made Live more popular

By Tom Bramwell Published 6 December, 2006

Says insightful research firm.

Some people who count Internets have reported that Xbox Live usage went up 80 per cent in the US after the release of Viva Piņata.

(And Gears of War, obviously - but let's be honest about who did what.)

Sandvine Incorporated says it observed the jump in usage across a sampling of American broadband service providers shortly after 7th November, which saw Gears, Piņata and four other 360 games ship to stores.

It's comparing the leap in popularity of the online gaming service to the one it noticed after the launch of Halo 2 in 2004.

"The effect Gears of War and other games are having on networks indicates to service providers that online gaming is not just a craze," says Sandvine president and CEO Dave Caputo, who has an excellent, moogle-esque name.

"Their networks must be equipped to protect this increasingly valuable traffic from the effects of a best-effort network," he gobbledegooked.

"Other multimedia applications like video downloads onto iPods are increasingly becoming popular, so service providers need to identify these trends early in order to proactively ensure there is adequate capacity to support the extra bandwidth usage," Caputo concluded.

Too right. For more on Gears of War, pick up a fistful of mud and look for the nearest person whose shoulders are less than six feet across.

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. Follow him on Twitter.

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

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Comments (29) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Zomoniac #1 6 years ago

    Best. Article. Ever.

  • Aurifex. #2 6 years ago

    Gears is good online i have to say.

  • [maven] #3 6 years ago

    LOL at last paragraph... :D

  • speedjack #4 6 years ago

    Gears is great fun online... and I hardly ever go online.

  • Dizzy #5 6 years ago

    If only GoW would have a good matchmaking system it would be even more popular. Now I only play private matches with friends (also fun ofc).

  • kangarootoo #6 6 years ago

    "Other multimedia applications like video downloads onto iPods are increasingly becoming popular"

    And these people get paid to tell us this wholly obvious stuff. Christ, I am in the wrong business.

    /browse web for info
    /write info down
    /make money
    /repeat

  • Yossarian #7 6 years ago

    Microsoft need to buy Bungie's matchmaking stuff and release it as middleware

  • DCrider360 #8 6 years ago

    GEARS

    baddest game on the planet!!!!

    no surprise it alone has surged LIVE considerebly

  • Dizzy #9 6 years ago

    >Microsoft need to buy Bungie's matchmaking stuff and release it as middleware

    Err?? MS owns Bungie.

    But yes.. I agree... MS should add matchmaking into Live SDK. This "browse for games" is so 1990s PC.
    Edited by Dizzy at 06/12/06 @ 12:45

  • stuarty_2003 #10 6 years ago

    @Yossarian: Wait a sec, Microsoft own that Bungie developer thing....BUT the matchmaking system is what separates Halo from all other Live games at the moment so I'm sure they'll keep it to themselves!

  • mazzl #11 6 years ago

    this is just filler news EG, common, i'm not hitting F5 all day for this.
    tell me why ms droped the original xbox so hard, tell me what nintendo wii is going to do in europe, tell me about multiplayer games for the wii.
    what can we expect in march.. etc etc.
    and most of all, if you're bored, do some more develepor visits like with viva piniata :) thats the good stuff! loved that realy did.
    so go and visits blizard, lucas arts (the new indiana jones will be wicked), go visit lion head (fable2) end so forth...


  • Steroyd #12 6 years ago

    ZEEEELLLLDDDAAAAA.

    Seeing how your making news of stuff, the PSP has had a 3.02 update today and the PS3 has also had a 1.30 update as well.

    Who didn't expect Gears to boost up Online play come on put your hand up.

    /crickets

  • Rodster #13 6 years ago

    @Steroyd

    Sony did release firmware patch v1.30 for the PS3. I installed it this morning and it fixed the downscaling issue. So now you can play the game in it's intended resolution.

  • agparrot #14 6 years ago

    "Good online game boosts online figures"

    People... get PAID to say stuff like this?

    amazing.

  • L42yB #15 6 years ago

    "@Yossarian: Wait a sec, Microsoft own that Bungie developer thing....BUT the matchmaking system is what separates Halo from all other Live games at the moment so I'm sure they'll keep it to themselves! "

    If you remember Quake 4 on the 360 (it was a launch title) it tried to copy bungie's matchmaking a little (as in, you couldn't find specific games, u could only select a game type and then it would try to join you to the 'best' game).

    Personally, I like the freedom of being able to choose which game I want to join... maybe the best option would be to have both...? Like the way halo2 does it for ranked matches and a free choice on the unranked games...

  • Krun #16 6 years ago

    "Good things are better than bad things!" Said a spokesman paid to inform us of things we already knew. He went on to say "tomorrow will be another day" and finally concluded that "Most people want to be doing more stuff they like." He then picked up his cheque and laughed all the way to the bank.

  • Inflatable #17 6 years ago

    What a surprise.. Every new AAA Xbox 360 game with good online options will make Xbox Live more popular offcourse.. I bet Rainbow Six Vegas got more people on XBL aswell..

  • SBfistfun #18 6 years ago

    "baddest game on the planet!!!! "

    Not being a friend of the other tribe, I'm not exactly sure what this means?

    I've seen worse games out there

  • DCrider360 #19 6 years ago

    @SBfistfun


    "baddest game on the planet!!!! "

    baddest as in the best game out right now, no question.

    makes you hard as a roc!!!
    Edited by DCrider360 at 06/12/06 @ 14:51

  • chupachups #20 6 years ago

    "And these people get paid to tell us this wholly obvious stuff. Christ, I am in the wrong business.

    /browse web for info
    /write info down
    /make money
    /repeat"

    You're not far wrong. A lot of these reports are slightly rejigged forum and blog posts copied without permission.

  • Jheronimus #21 6 years ago

    "War makes people dead"
    "Movement stops you from standing still"
    "Death ends your live"
    "Nightfall ends sunshine"
    "Smoking is hazardous to your health"

    Where can I get my paycheck?

  • foxy2006 #22 6 years ago

    cant believe all the hype over such a mediocre shooter

    /jumps in pool of petrol

  • cyber_nicco #23 6 years ago

    /Throws match on pool of petrol

  • davisorle #24 6 years ago

    Post deleted at 20:44:35 16-04-2012

  • Machiavellian #25 6 years ago

    The PS3 1.30 update did not fix the 1080i problem but instead made a total mess of things.

    Here is the lowdown. The update change the order preference for HDTV instead of 1080p|720p|1080i|480p it is now 1080p|1080i|720p|480P

    Why this is such a screw up is if your set native res is 720P but it supports 1080i, the PS3 will force the 1080i res. If you turn this option off, and lets say you want to play a Blueray movie, the PS3 will down sample the movie to 480P. In other words you cannot watch a blueray movie at 720p but instead at either 1080i or 720p.

    This is not good at all and totally make me happy to wait another year before even thinking about a PS3

  • Xerx3s #26 6 years ago

    cant believe all the hype over such a mediocre shooter

    Maybe it's because the people who actually played it know that it is in fact rather good. You can hype something only so far, but the moment that it hit's the shops, it has to carry it's own weight. And that it exactly what it is doing.

    And how the fuck does the PS3 update come in to play in all this? I'm sorry but I don't see the connection to the topic. Must be my stupidity.

  • Pho-Zoon #27 6 years ago

    Not sure if it's been taken into account, but surely the fact that Gears comes with a 48 hour Live trial is going to cause a significant bump in figures, regardless of game hype/quality.

    Mind you, despite the controls not actually being quite as good as those of Vegas, I'm really enjoying GoW. Can't say I've played the multiplayer much, and I'm pissed they didn't include a standard deathmatch with 4 player splitscreen... The single player is fluid and a lot of fun. Nice.

  • NthSimulachum #28 6 years ago

    Bah, Eurogamer is obsessed with Viva Pinata. Just because it was as good as Gears...

    *cries bitter memetic tears*

  • effinwooly #29 6 years ago

    great game ! GoW I mean