Gears release causes 80% increase in Xbox Live users

Sandvine identified a surge in Xbox Live and iTunes traffic on North American broadband networks following the release of new Xbox games and iTunes 7.

Sandvine observed an 80% increase in the number of Xbox Live users across a sampling of North American-based broadband service providers’ networks during the first week following the release of six new Xbox games. On November 7, 2006, Microsoft released six new games for Xbox, including the highly anticipated release of Gears of War, which sold 1-million copies in the first two weeks.

This spike in Xbox Live traffic following the launch of a highly anticipated game is reminiscent of Halo II’s release in 2004 (read "Halo II signals start of broadband gaming boom"), marking the first boom in online gaming and resulting in the sustainable popularity of Xbox Live.

"The effect Gears of War and other games are having on networks indicates to service providers that online gaming is not just a craze. Their networks must be equipped to protect this increasingly valuable traffic from the effects of a best-effort network," says Dave Caputo, president and CEO of Sandvine. "Other multimedia applications like video downloads onto iPods are increasingly becoming popular, so service providers need to identify these trends early in order to proactively ensure there is adequate capacity to support the extra bandwidth usage."