Microsoft has just announced that Epic's action title Gears of War has sold 2 million copies (one of which I own) in about six weeks. As a result, Gears is the first mega- hit for the next-generation consoles. Not only has the game sold plenty of copies, but the game has also been a hit with critics who have lauded Epic's eye-popping design and graphics. In addition, Gears is doing crazy business on Xbox Live and finally unseated Halo 2 as the most played game for Microsoft's online network. Will Gears of War help push the Xbox 360 to 10 million units sold by January 1st? We'll see.

And wouldn't you know, Epic is hard at work on sequels to Gears of War. This is a good thing because the enjoyable single player campaign came off like an example of episodic gaming: brief content that's part of a larger story. Indeed, there are plenty of details that were left unexplained in Gears of War, such as Marcus Fenix's backstory, the Locust Horde's origin, and the identity of the spooky female voice-over at the end of the game.

While I think Gears is a tad overrated at this point, it was well worth the money spent and has been the best example yet of the next-gen consoles' potential. And even though I got totally annoyed by NPC Augustus "Cole Train" Cole, I'm pretty excited about a Gears sequel. If Epic can add some new elements to the already enticing game play, expand the single player campaign and then fill in the story, then GoW 2 will be even better than the original.