The holiday season kicks off tonight for gamers. At 12:01am, “Halo Reach,” the first blockbuster of the fall/winter goes on sale. It will lead the charge of a densely packed 3.5-month period of major game releases that will determine how 2010 turns out for the video game industry. 

Now, normally, you wait for sales numbers before calling a release a blockbuster – but when you’re dealing with a new action-based “Halo” game, you can skip the formality. The franchise has sold over 34 million copies and consumed 3.3 billion hours of gameplay (that’s over 376,000 years, if you’re keeping score at home) since its launch with the original Xbox.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog