Sandvine Network Demographics tracked the effect of Halo 3 on Xbox Live traffic across a sampling of North American and European-based broadband service providers’ networks. The new game was released on September 25th. Over the following week, Sandvine observed a 100% to 200% increase in peak bandwidth of Xbox Live traffic, compared to the period prior to the release. This peak actually occurred the day after the release, as opposed to the day of the release, during which traffic began to climb gradually.

Sample of Traffic from Broadband Provider

Xbox Live peak traffic increased between 100% and 200% after the release of Halo 3

The number of hosts (gamers) remained unchanged from before Halo 3’s release, implying that existing Xbox Live gamers most likely accounted for the additional bandwidth consumption, as opposed to new gamers. Comparing the recent spike to the Gears of War release, after which new gamers increased by 55% and bandwidth only rose by 30% (See Gears of War release for comparison), it can be deduced that Halo 3 traffic was most likely generated by existing Xbox gamers while Gears of War brought about new gamers.

Sandvine also tracked time-of-day trends and observed that Xbox Live traffic increased for all hours of day, including off-peak hours. The gaming peak occurs several hours later than the business hours peak (9am-5pm) for most application traffic. Gaming traffic builds up in the early to mid-afternoon on weekdays and peaks just before midnight, so the Xbox live traffic is most active between 6pm and 1am. On weekends, Xbox gaming builds in the late morning.

Sandvine Network Demographics is a part of Sandvine’s Intelligent Broadband Network Solutions suite that enables service providers to identify applications on a per-subscriber basis, providing the insight and the tools required to roll out new application-specific service levels that enhance subscribers’ quality of experience, maximize ROI on infrastructure investments, reduce customer churn, and increase the service provider’s revenue per customer.

Early identification of Halo 3 traffic has enabled Sandvine customers to plan for any increases in bandwidth usage and ensure the optimal online experience for their subscribers.

Find out how much gaming traffic is on YOUR network; contact sales@sandvine.com.

Microsoft and Xbox are registered trademarks of Microsoft.

Download PDF of this trend analysis [here]