Good news. According to Microsoft, early orders for Gears of War have been amazingly high. It's second only to the demand for Halo 2 back in 2004 (Halo 2 had 1.5 million pre-orders and an additional 1 million sold on the release date). But Microsoft did not reveal the exact numbers of how many Gears of War copies have been presold.

Bad news? Reuters reported against "setting expectations too high". Halo 2 built on the success of its predecessor, Halo: Combat Evolved. There was already a lot of fans. But Gears of War is a fresh title.

Even more bad news? Halo: Combat Evolved was a launch title for the first Xbox (November 15, 2001). Halo 2 came out November 9, 2004 (three years later). In the cycle of ups and downs of any industry, you can say that the Xbox was already a mature platform by that time. There were plenty of Xbox gamers. Companies and third parties were already experienced in marketing and selling for the console. In other words, there weren't that many loose ends and unknowns.

On the other hand, Gears of War is being released in a few days(!) for the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 isn't even a year old (its birthday: November 22). And Gears of War is going to cost US$ 60. That's 20% more than Halo 2's price.

The future. Halo 2 drove Xbox Live and boosted Xbox Live subscriptions. Microsoft is hoping Gears of War can do the same for the Xbox 360 (considering how amazing the multiplayer is). If not, there's still Viva Pinata, the other half of Microsoft's two-part holiday sales plan - but Pinata is for small kids! We big kids would rather see you guys on Sera!

• The Xbox 360 is still a young platform - are there enough of us Xbox 360 players who will go out and buy Gears of War?
• Is the US$ 60 price tag worth it? Reuters says it's more expensive than Halo 2 - but it's for another platform and times have changed, right?