With weekend sales topping 2 million units worldwide, Gears of War 2 is well on its way to becoming one of the biggest releases of this console generation.

Over 20,000 retail locations opened their doors at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 7 to celebrate the worldwide release of Gears of War 2.

"We were so excited to launch Gears of War 2 on the same day all around the world, something virtually unheard of in the games business," said Cliff Bleszinski, design director at Epic Games. "We wanted our fans, no matter where they live, to have a shared experience on day one, and that's exactly what's happened."

More than 1.5 million people logged into Gears of War 2 on Xbox Live during the weekend, racking up a total 15 million gameplay hours and helping set a new record for concurrent Live players.

Xbox 360 fan Shiam Jai, who travelled over 200 miles and waited outside the Kingston branch of GAME for 36 hours to be the first person in the UK to get their hands on a copy of the coveted game, commented "I've been waiting two years for this moment and now I've finally got my hands on it. It's going to be the greatest game of all time, made even better by being able to play it on the greatest console of all time."