Halo 3 most played game on Xbox Live

Just in case you haven't seen this, official Xbox mouthpiece Major Nelson, has released lists of the most played games on Xbox Live last year. The top five most played titles looks like this:

1 Halo 3
2 Call of Duty 4
3 Modern Warfare 2
4 Call of Duty: WaW
5 Gears of War 2

Sure, the chart is dominated by the Call of Duty juggernaut, but it's interesting that Halo 3 has held on to the top spot, two years after its release. It seems Bungie's shooter has a hold over the Xbox online fraternity that simple cannot be broken, despite the incredible sales figures of, say, Modern Warfare 2.

One question: why? I mean, obviously the maps are excellent and the four-player co-op is an important benchmark, but what else is this about? Is there a sort of brand loyalty among regular online players (Halo is, after all, an inextricable element of the Xbox throughline)? Or is it that online games - and the communities that surround them - take time to mature, like fine wines, but with assault rifles? But, then of course, Halo 3 had one million players attempting the Live experience on day one... Whatever, it will be interesting to see how the 2010 chart looks, especially when the map packs start coming in for Modern Warfare 2.

There were other charts to ponder through too...

The top five Arcade titles looks like this:

1 Battlefield 1943
2 Castle Crashers
3 Trials HD
4 Hasbro Family Game Night **
5 Shadow Complex

A worthy victory for EA, but just look at the retro-flavouring elsewhere - all effectively 2D titles, harking back to yesteryear.

As for indie titles:

1 I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1
2 Avatar Drop
3 RC-AirSim
4 Headshot
5 Miner Dig Deep

And everyone of them worth a download if you haven't already.

So anything missing as far as you're concerned? And what is it about Halo?