Which defined the Xbox 360 more, The Original Gears of War or Halo 3?

Both were the most important titles of the 360's lifespan undeniably, but which defined it more?

Gears 1. The trailer was out way before the 360 launched and the graphics didn't dissapoint. Halo was already known before the 360 and the graphics didn't define anything

Gears of War, I just remember inviting my friend over to my place right after I got my Xbox 360 and Gears, and the moment he used the lancer chainsaw to saw through an enemy he was like "that's it I'm getting one". Like the next day we were at his house collecting his Xbox and PS2 and cleaning the dust off it as best as possible and gathering everything ready to trade in so he could get an Xbox 360. Then we took it to Game Crazy and yeah we played a lot of online stuff together for years. Funny thing too, he recommended the game to me not knowing what the game was, just the people at work wouldn't shut up about it but he hadn't yet tried it himself.

Gears of War though does deserve to say it was a more defining experience on the Xbox One, mainly because it was Epic and Gears of War that MS lost about $1 billion dollars eating the cost of doubling the RAM in the Xbox One to get the best performance they could afford out of the game. If it weren't for that game, and Epic, the Xbox 360 would have been a much weaker console.

Plus, Halo carried over from the original Xbox. Gears of War made its debut on the Xbox 360 so I think that further makes it more an Xbox 360 defining experience. Plus it was a paved the way toward adoption of features like cover systems combat mechanics and reflex aiming and that over the shoulder gameplay... nothing entirely original but it was a trend setter in that regard, just as games like Uncharted also was big on reinforcing these conventions.

Gears because Halo 2 was more revolutionary than Halo 3 and a much better game in general.

Gears of War defined much more than just the 360. And I'd say nothing came even close to that kinda influence on PS3. Uncharted was popular and also influential in some ways but it was nowhere near a seismic event first Gear was - which also begat Uncharted.

Gears Of War. But Halo 3 was a better game in my opinion. And it had a lot more hype surrounding it due to how good Halo 1 and 2 were. A next gen Halo seemed irresistible at the time. But Gears Of War was the first game I saw last gen that made me think we weren't in gen 6 anymore. It looked so damn pretty, better looking than Halo 3 actually.

Halo 3 was better, but yeah I would argue for Gears of War as a series defining the 360 between the two franchises. But I don't know why you limited it to the MS exclusives, CoD4 might be the game that actually defined the 360 in so many different ways.

That's a good point.

Gears. It was the game that convinced me to purchase teh X360 when i did. I think it made the biggest graphics impact of any game of last gen because it was one of the first games to show what next gen was.

Gears of War. It's still one of my favourite games ever.

Gears of War really push the HD graphic during the early days of Xbox 360 and after playing the remaster version, the 360 version age horribly.

Halo is and likely always will be the Xbox Flagship IP but Gears in 2006 made a Huge splash and set the tone for the rest of the gen.

Either way, just like this gen., Xbox Won. :P

CoD

Got my 360 because of Gears of War and Dead Rising. Lulz at Halo.

Out of those Halo 3 but CoD 4 was more important than both combined.