I don't particularly like either of those games.  In fact, I can't stand ANY of the Halo games.  And I thought Gears of War was just......meh.    But other people do like those games.  They like them enough that those particular games have sold MILLIONS of copies and MILLIONS of Xbox 360s.  But I don't see how people can shrug those games off.  People who are not particularly fans of the 360 always seem to say things like, "The 360 only does well because of Halo and Gears of War."  I think we can probably all agree that those two titles were major factors in giving the Xbox 360 the 18 million unit install base that it currently has.  And the rabid fanbase only grew from there because it spawned tons of other terrific games that give the 360 what seems to just about the best game library available on any of the consoles. 

I don't know, to me it's like saying, "The NES was only successful because everyone wanted to play Super Mario Bros.  Other than that it had nothing going for it."  I guess it just sounds ridiculous to me.  Personally, I don't care what system anyone buys.  It seems that these days a lot of people buy ALL of the consoles available anyway.  I just feel that PS3 fanboys have a lot of nerve making fun of the 360's game library.  I was looking at PS3s today at Best Buy and then I looked over at where all the games are.  There isn't much to speak of yet.  The only thing the PS3 has is the 2008 lineup of unproven games.  I'm not saying those games won't be good.  I'm sure MG fans will love MGS4 and I'm sure Gran Turismo 5 will be amazing.  But nothing is a sure thing, and no release date is a sure release date.  In fact, we're only going to see Gran Turismo Prologue this year anyway.  

Because of all the PS3 press lately, PS3 fans seem to be ready to say that the PS3 has "won" the console war.  To me it's kind of like Hillary Clinton inviting Barack Obama to be her running mate while she's still down in the polls.  (Yes, that really happened a few weeks ago.)  Xbox 360 has a much larger install base right now, it already has a proven game library, and I even saw a market analysis on AnandTech today that it will only be 1 million units shy of the PS3 in 2008 sales.  Say what you want about the RRoD, it seems to be slowly moving into the background, and it also has been an annoyance people are willing to live with.  They don't want to abandon those precious Gamerpoints.  Will it effect the next gen Xbox as far as concerns about quality control?  Maybe.  But that's another thing we just don't know.  I think the Xbox 360 is alive and well and probably isn't going anywhere for quite awhile yet.

The 360 is much more of a success than the first xbox. The ps2 is so far much more of a success than the ps3.

That being said the market is large enough for 3 consoles to make a profit and have a happy fan base numbering in the tens of millions. All is ok in video game land no matter how much bickering these boards see.

I can't say I'm a 360 fan, but I don't remember seeing anyone here 'shrugging' any of the two games off.

Both were great games in your own way. You don't have to be a 360 lover to realize that. I personally thing the only person disliking those are people who never played it, that or Thompson. ;)

i agree
sure, Halo 3 may not be the best FPS ever but it's sales do prove that this game does have some value to it

Gears of War deserves a bad rap for all the overhyping and unrealistic outstanding reviews it got. Anyone that can stand there and seriously tell me that Gears of War was one of the best games ever created and deserves almost a 94% overall critical rating, has seriously gone insane. It was an average game at best and that's the truth.

Halo 3 probably gets a bad rep cause fanboys love to attack Halo, although Halo has declined since the beginning, but not enough to give it a less than 85% overall rating.

 OMG i'm insane! :) 

You shouldn't take anything written on the internet too seriously, especially when it's spewed from the mouths of rabid fanboys.

 This is the most confusing post I have read in a long time. Your seem to not like the fact that people give Gears and Halo a bad rap, and then you give it one. You then seem to not like the fact that people think the user base of the 360 can largely be contributed to these two games, and then you do it.

Funny :) 

Sorry for the confusion.  I didn't like those two games that much, but I can see why some people do, and to shrug them off as flukes that are the only reason the 360 is popular seems so ridculous to me.  I think Halo and Halo 2 put Xbox on the map.  I think Halo 3 and Gears turned the Xbox 360 into a force to be reckoned with and a serious contender in the console race.  And in the meantime we got TONS of good games for the 360 that gave even more people a reason to buy it.  Hell, even I couldn't resist buying a 360 after awhile, and I have been a PC gamer almost my whole life.

Also, for the record,  I don't see as many people making these ridiculous claims on this site, which is why I like it so much. 

Bungie and Epic both put years into making those games. Most games that come out are made in around a year and they are not as high quailty. Nobody should down hard work and effort=]