Xbox Gaming in South Africa

Microsoft is confident that they have a winner on their hands with the highly anticipated Xbox exclusive Gears of War 3, so much so that they're calling Gears of War 3 the "biggest platform exclusive franchise on any platform this year".

"The thing about this E3, one of our key targets we want to hit is the blockbuster games that you want to play are on 360," said Microsoft's corporate vice president Phil Spencer in an interview with OXM. "The biggest platform exclusive franchise on any platform this year will be Gears of War.

"We've always been an organisation that's focussed on impact with what we ship," Spencer continued. "If you look at how our 1st party franchises sell, how many play online, the breadth of experience and frankly the number of units sold, our franchises do incredibly well relative to Sony's 1st party. And I think that will continue. That's just the consumers voting, saying what they think matters."

Bold words considering the PS3's 2011 line-up includes games such as Uncharted 3 and Resistance 3, but then again, with the previous Gears of War title hitting a whopping 3 million in sales in its first month alone, there's no doubt that Gears of War 3 - backed by an undoubtedly massive marketing budget - will be a major player for your money this year.

Gears of War 3 will be out worldwide on 20 September.