As if anyone needed any more confirmation that this game is on its way…today Microsoft Game Studios and Epic Games announced that this highly anticipated Xbox 360 exclusive has gone Gold. Get ready for Emergence Day! Gears of War will be on store shelves November 12th and the battle to become Xbox Live’s #1 title will begin. Will it overcome Halo 2?
The regular edition of Gears of War will be $59.99 and the collector’s edition comes in at $69.99.
Xbox Live will celebrate Emergence Day with 24-hours of special events beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 12. Xbox Live Gold members in North America will have a chance to participate in online tournaments, download videos, win prizes and participate in a variety of activities including:
- A 24-Hour Leader board Tournament. The tournament winner receives a one of a kind “Gears of War” branded guitar as well as an automatic bye to the finals of a Global “Gears of War” Tournament planned for 2007.
- Hourly sweepstakes drawings and prize giveaways including the chance to win one of several Samsung HT-P29 Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound Systems
- An exclusive free “Gears of War” Gamer pic and theme only available on Emergence Day
- Game with Fame sessions with legendary heavy metal band and “Gears of War” fans Megadeth, the game’s lead designer Cliff Bleszinski and other members of the Epic Games team
- Never before seen videos including a special Emergence Day transmission from Cliff Bleszinski
- An MTV “Gears of War: The Road to Launch” Sneak Preview
October 25th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
August 4th, 2006 -
The following is from Mark Rein, Vice President and co-founder of Epic Games:
As many of you are already aware today Microsoft announced launch details for Gears of War. Here’s what we know so far…
In North America Emergence Day is November 12th. What that means is November 12th is the date by which all of the stores in North America will have the game on their shelves and for which Microsoft tells us they’re going to organize some cool Emergence Day event.
However to get to stores in time for that the actual game will ship on November 7th. Some stores, like EB & Gamestop, will, at their own additional expense, park their trucks at Microsoft’s warehouse and start taking deliveries at midnight on the 7th in an effort to get it to their stores right away - in some cases possibly even that day or a day or two later. The big boys, like Wal*Mart and Best Buy, have too many stores and are too complex to do that so they’ll ship it through their distribution centers and spinkle it into theirs stores as best they can. What Microsoft tells us is if we ship on the 7th then 12th is the safe date for when all the stores will have and that’s why it will be Emergence Day. We only have solid details like this for North America at this point in time.
It’s a little different in every region around the world.
October 25th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
It’s been stated in a ton of different places including OXM that some stores will get their shipments on the 7th for sale on the 8th. That is truth for sure.
As for Deac’s comment about it overtaking Halo2 in Live play…while I would love to see a two year old game finally fade away, GoW I’m afraid won’t be the one to do it. Lack of meaningful online party and clan play will still cause people to revert to Halo2. The second reason is sheer mathmatics, there still isn’t enough 360’s out there to overtake Halo2. Even if we over-generously assume there might be 10 million 360’s out there by the end of the year, in order to overtake Halo2’s copies in-use GoW would need a staggering 79% penetration. For a huge as Halo2 was it only managed about a 30% penetration rate.
GoW overtaking Halo2 is still all but impossible.
October 26th, 2006 at 7:35 am
i cant wait, i wish that day were here already
October 27th, 2006 at 5:07 am
I took part of the day off on the 7th just so I could get extra GoW play time in. I want to make sure I have my skilz honed for Emergence Day. See you all online!
October 27th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
I saw the new GoW ttailer when I saw SAW III yesterday. There was also a Zune commercial.
October 30th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Gears of War is going to be amazing!