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Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman attended a Halo 4 launch at the University Village Microsoft Store back in November 2012.

If you like playing video games and root for the Seattle Seahawks, a visit to a Microsoft Store on Monday evening might be in order.

titanfall21Starting at 9 p.m., Microsoft is hosting parties for customers at its retail stores across the country on Monday to celebrate the March 11 launch of Titanfall, a highly-anticipated science fiction shooting game that Microsoft is counting on to help increase Xbox One sales.

Gamers will have the opportunity to win prizes and play Titanfall before it is released to the masses on Tuesday. Those who head to the University Village and Bellevue Square stores in the Seattle region will also be able to meet Seattle Seahawks star cornerback Richard Sherman, who will be taking photos with fans and playing a little Xbox himself at each location.

Sherman, who dominated headlines in January with his stellar defensive play and entertaining interviews, did something similar back in November 2012 for a Halo 4 launch party at the U Village Microsoft Store.

“This is amazing,” Sherman told us in 2012. “I wish I knew about events like this when I was younger. They should have these kind of things all the time to bring people together. A lot of gamerheads would love this kind of stuff.”

Sherman’s appearance at these midnight launch events are part of Microsoft’s partnership with the Seahawks, who won their first Super Bowl last month. Most recently we noted how Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson has become the company’s unofficial athlete spokesperson for the Surface tablet.

titanfallbundleAs for Titanfall itself, the game is launching exclusively on the Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Windows PC. Microsoft hopes that the game convinces more people to purchase the Xbox One, which retails at $499 and has taken a backseat to the $399 PlayStation 4 in terms of sales. Sony announced last week that it had sold more than 6 million PS4 systems worldwide — compared to 3.9 million Xbox Ones sold — and outpaced Microsoft nearly 2-to-1 for PS4 sales in the U.S. during January.

Microsoft last week announced an Xbox One Titanfall Bundle, which includes an Xbox One console, an Xbox One chat headset, one month of Xbox Live Gold and a copy of Titanfall all for $499 — currently the same price as the Xbox One by itself. Purchased separately, Titanfall costs $59.99, so Microsoft is offering a pretty substantial discount with the package.

Titanfall, an online-only multiplayer game, was produced by Electronic Arts and developed by Respawn Entertainment, the folks who created the uber-popular Call of Duty series. For those that can’t attend the Monday launch parties, Microsoft is live-streaming the action from its store in Austin starting at 8 p.m. PT.

Update, 3:30 p.m.

If you were wondering about specific timing for Sherman’s appearances, it looks like the Stanford grad will be in Bellevue around 9:45 p.m. before heading back into the city for a 10:45 p.m. stop at the U Village store.

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