Guinness World Records is giving Xbox, Halo 3 and other gamers everywhere a book full of goals to shoot for with the launching this week of its first Gamer's Edition. (Read a Network World golden oldie about tech records in the Guinness World Records Book.)

Guinness unveiled the book, which includes scores of records plus some game reviews, at an event in London and promises to make it available in the United States March 8. The event featured some of the United Kingdom's biggest names in games, including David 'Daveyskills' Kelly who proved his mettle by setting a world record in Project Gotham Racing 4 and Samantha 'Ricochet' Whale, who blasted her way to a new score attack record on Halo 3. Gamers attempted to break Wii Tennis records during the event, but failed to do so.

Keith Pullin, editor of the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, said in a statement: "The games industry is the fastest growing entertainment sector in the world, and the launch of our Gamer's Edition book shows just how exciting it is to be involved."

A few fast facts from the book:
* On Sept. 25, 2007, the release of Halo 3 generated $170 million worth of first-day sales in the United States alone – nearly triple the $60 million made by the movie Spider-Man 3 on its first day of release.
* The fastest completion of Super Mario World is 10 minutes, 54 seconds by Scott Kessler on July 9, 2004.
* In September 2002, the U.K.'s Faiz Chopdat was jailed for four months for playing Tetris on his mobile phone on a plane. Nobody has been jailed longer for playing a video game.

Looking ahead to the 2009 edition of the book, the Guinness editors have put out a call for collectors of video game hardware and software, including the largest collections of PlayStation, Nintendo, Sega, Atari and Microsoft Xbox. They're even looking for collectors of gaming costumes, such as for Super Mario.