When Microsoft announced that a teaser trailer for Halo 3 would air during a recent edition of ESPN’s Monday Night Football, the world tuned in – and when it was announced that a few lucky gamers would have the chance to play a multiplayer beta of the highly anticipated end of the Halo trilogy almost an entire year before it’s release, the world responded. Did they ever respond.

According to an official announcement from Microsoft, over 140,000 people registered for the Halo 3 beta within 24 hours of the opening of the registration. The large number of visitors brought Halo3.com to a crawl, leaving many eager gamers frustrated as they couldn’t get past the site’s front page.

Registration is still open to those who own an Xbox 360 (with hard drive), an Xbox Live Gold Account and a Microsoft.NET passport account linked to their gamertag.

Microsoft and Bungie are expected to announce other ways for gamers to play the beta soon.