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It's been a while since Halo 3 made headlines, but just in case you thought this 2007 FPS had already broken its final record, developer Bungie notified the world of this jaw-dropping figure: As of this weekend, the number of Halo 3 matches that have been played to date add up to over one billion. Specifically, the billionth match was a game of Infection played on the Foundry map at exactly 6:36 p.m. last Saturday -- no word as of yet if the participants were showered with confetti in celebration.

Bungie attempted to give those numbers a bit of context on their official website by comparing them to Halo 2's current multiplayer statistics. Since its late 2004 release, Halo 2 -- still incredibly popular for an original Xbox game -- has thus far only reached 798 million total matches played. That means it took a little over a year for Halo 3 to eclipse the online popularity that its predecessor has been accruing over the last four years.

With over a billion matches played, you might be wondering exactly how many man hours have gone into playing Halo 3 online. Bungie calculates that around 64,109 years have been spent in ranked Halo 3 matchmaking alone -- a staggeringly gargantuan figure that the developer reached by adding together the time each player spent in each game.

Bungie also took the opportunity to express their deep gratitude for the continuing success of Halo 3, as well as promise their fans that they'll be hearing more from them in the future:

We couldn't have done it without you, our fans. Literally. Thanks a billion for all the good games and the continued community support. We're in awe of the success Halo 3 has been met with, but we're not done yet. Stick around and stay tuned, there's definitely more to come.