Submitted by: kirkland on Tuesday December 05th, 2006 at 04:41 PM EST

Broadband network company Sandvine claims that it recorded an 80 percent jump in Xbox Live usage upon the release of Microsoft’s Gears of War.

Touting the effectiveness of its own broadband network solution, the firm said that the spike in North American traffic following the game’s release was “reminiscent of Halo 2’s release in 2004.” The data was collected during the first week of Gears of Wars' availability.

Gears of War launched November 7, and was widely available in stores by November 12. The game has proven to be a critical and commercial success, selling over 1 million units in its first two weeks of availability. That same week, other big just-released Xbox Live-enabled titles contributed to the boost, including Call of Duty 3 and Tony Hawk’s Project 8, both from Activision.

» Full story @ next-gen.biz