China Electronics Wholesaler

Epic Games president Michael Capps' complaints about the rental and used game markets cutting into company profits may ring a bit hollow today after receiving word from Microsoft stating that the Xbox 360 exclusive Gears of War 2 had opening weekend sales of over 2 million units worldwide.

To top that off, over 1.5 million people logged into Xbox Live during the weekend -- a record for concurrent players on Microsoft's service -- racking up 15 million gameplay hours in Gears of War 2. Gamers who joined in the fray collectively unlocked over 19 million Achievements.

These overwhelmingly huge numbers on both sides of the spectrum are in part thanks to Epic design director Cliff Bleszinski's wish to launch the game on the same day worldwide. Says Bleszinski:

"We were so excited to launch Gears of War 2 on the same day all around the world, something virtually unheard of in the games business. We wanted our fans, no matter where they live, to have a shared experience on day one, and that's exactly what's happened."

If those figures were just actual sales in America, you would be looking at over $120 million dollars -- and that is not taking into consideration the limited edition version of the game and price differences in other regions. Considering that the holiday shopping extravaganza is only a scant couple of weeks away, you can only expect these sales numbers to skyrocket across the globe. Kind of makes Capps' problems sound a bit less important, doesn't it?