Halo 3 Passes 5m, Gets New Maps

Meanwhile, Microsoft says that the Xbox 360 is under sales pressure too.

The frenzy may have subsided but Halo 3 - and the Xbox 360 itself - is still proving popular this Christmas.

In an interview with GameDaily, Microsoft's Jeff Bell said that Master Chief's latest has now sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. And that's after coming off what Microsoft called the biggest entertainment launch ever, when Halo 3 hit stores in September to the tune of $300 million in one week.

And while the game was streaming off shelves around the world, anxious Xbox 360 owners were collectively spending millions of hours playing the game on Xbox Live. There's now more for them to play too.

On Tuesday Microsoft put out the Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack - three new maps that expand the game's multiplayer mode. The three maps have been built to cater to all kinds of game types with small or large scale battles.

The Heroic Map Pack is available now from the Xbox Live Marketplace for 800 Microsoft Points, or you can wait until next year to get them for free.

Halo 3 and the glut of well-reviewed Xbox 360 games are pulling people in to stores to buy new systems too, and the pressure, Microsoft says, is starting to show.

The company said this week that it's having a hard time keeping up with the appetite for hardware, though it stopped short of mentioning specific figures.

Speaking to GameSpot, Microsoft's Stephen McGill said that the company was "struggling to meet the demand from every retailer every week".

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo