"Age of Empires III" Goes Platinum - Becomes Fastest-Selling Game in Franchise History. Ensemble Studios announces ?Fastest Industrial Age? contest in honor of one million copies sold.

Age of Empires III has gone platinum! Microsoft Game Studios and Ensemble Studios today announced Age of Empires III has secured its place in history as the fastest selling title in the franchise's history, reaching more than one million units sold since its October release.

To celebrate this record-breaking achievement, Ensemble Studios will host a worldwide search for the fastest Age of Empires player in a Fastest Industrial Age contest, which will kick off on February 1-14.

For two weeks, Age of Empires III players will battle it out for the title of the fastest Age player. Players will take on a random map and set out on an adventure as any of the civilizations to reach the Industrial Age in the least amount of time. The player whose time holds up as the fastest will be crowned champion and will win the first-place prize of a gaming PC, sponsored by Intel. Additionally NVIDIA is sponsoring the second and third-place prizes of a 7800GTX card and a 7800GT card, respectively. Further details and official rules will be posted.

Entrants will submit their recorded games via email and can monitor challengers times on a continually updated leader board posted to www.agecommunity.com. The top 10 fasted recorded games will be available for download at the completion of the tournament.