The listing (above) comes from Thursday's Child's Play Charity Auction Dinner in Seattle. Bungie donated not only a crate full of games and studio swag, but also a visit to the studio's "top secret lair" and "access to the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta before it goes live to the public." Winning bidder, and up to seven friends, supply their own travel, Bungie provides the network and food and, of course, the game.

"Valid only between 4/8/2010 and 4/28/2010 - any day within that range is acceptable," says the listing.

April 29, 2010 is a Thursday. Perhaps it could begin then. Most likely, "Spring 2010" now means "May 2010."

You know the drill. I've emailed Bungie. They say anything, it goes here.

Update: A Microsoft spokesperson has replied:

We're excited that there is so much interest and enthusiasm for the "Halo: Reach" multiplayer beta coming this spring. We're not able to confirm any details about the exact timing or content of the beta at this time but we look forward to revealing more details in the future.

Reach MP Beta - Date Narrowed Down? [halo.bungie.org, thanks Kaelen H.]

Sure, it has pretty much everything one would expect from a serious driving game, ensuring that the passionate Forza community who prefers the sim side of things is catered to. Forza 3 offers over 400 real world cars, more than 100 tracks on which to race them and impressive physics modeling that simulates some of the world's most coveted rides. And while players can enjoy Forza 3 with a traditional progression, starting small, improving their skills and purchasing better and faster cars, almost everything is available to you from the start.

Now that we've kicked Forza 3's tires—and peeled out with them—would we recommend you get behind the wheel?

Loved
From Arcade To Sim: Look, I'm kind of a driving game lightweight, not the type who would label myself a fan of simulations of almost any sort. I don't have a passion for cars, don't own a driving wheel controller and almost always play using a camera that follows behind the car. Thankfully, catering to my sim phobia, I was given the option from the beginning to play Forza Motorsport 3 according to my preference, effectively putting the game into arcade mode. This toggled on a number of driving assists, including auto-braking, full suggested driving and braking lines, traction control and an inconsequential damage model. Easy. However, as time went on, I became comfortable with Forza 3's handling, learning how to brake on my own, eventually becoming disgusted with my reliance on driving lines and automatic anti-lock braking hand-holding. After just a few hours, I'd turned off many of those assists, then more later on, letting me swim near the deeper end of driving simulation. For serious sim fans, the option to turn on manual shifting (with clutch!) and tire wear is easily accessed from many menus, letting you play the game as you wish.

Bring That Corner Back: One of the most helpful features in Forza Motorsport 3, the option to rewind a race a few seconds at a time, letting one correct one's mistakes, was also the one instrumental to me learning how to drive properly. Had I not had the opportunity to attempt a problematic corner again and again and again, without having to revisit the entire race, I'd have quickly lost the desire to compete. Rewind is a wonderful feature, a welcome addition to a simulation driving game that eases the frustration of that one botched chicane. Granted, rewind can't be used in multiplayer games, so drivers can't rely on it to fix every little mistake in Forza 3.

Power Leveling & Sweet Loot Drops: "Just one more race," I'd find myself saying while playing through Forza 3's rich single-player career mode. The constant allure of leveling your driver via the accumulation of experience points and the free cars gifted to you as you progress makes for a surprisingly addictive experience. Action RPG-like almost. Season-long race events interspersed with hundreds of shorter driving challenges ensures that there's plenty of variety, letting the player experience new tracks, new cars or simply become more familiar with the vehicle of their choice. There's some nice variety here, even if you'll revisit many tracks over the course of 220 available events.

The View From The Inside: Normally, I wouldn't have experienced Forza 3's wonderful in-car cockpit view, playing as I normally do. But after having done so to secure one of the game's achievements, I find myself opting for the cockpit view over everything else, feeling like I had a better feel for the road, an option made more palatable by the beautifully modeled interiors of each car.

Simple, Classic, Beautiful: The presentation here is top notch, with clean, crisp, well-designed menus making it easy to navigate Forza Motorsport 3's many modes and its collection of hundreds of cars. With the exception of a few exclusions—I would always assume I could tune, repaint or upgrade my car from the My Cars section—getting around (in the menus) is easy. Oh, right. The cars look stunning too, with plenty of options to take photos of each or just generally lust over them.

Quick Upgrade: Apologies for belaboring the point, but being somewhat behind the curve on how transmissions, differentials and other car upgrades work can make upgrading a car from stock to A-class race competitive is a little beyond me. Fortunately for the car un-enthusiast like me, the Quick Upgrade option, available when entering races, makes getting your car up to spec a one button affair. Of course, if you want to delve deeper into how brakes, wheel widths and intakes improve the various aspects of your car, Forza 3 lets you do that too. Me? I like pressing the A button and watching credits disappear.

Let's Shop: One of Forza Motorsports 3's biggest innovations is the addition of a virtual storefront, letting players sell cars, designs, vinyls, tuning set ups and more. Since I'm not much of a content generator myself, i rely on the idle time of others to help me customize and expand my car library. Buying and bidding on items is easy and intuitive, thanks to the well designed storefront. Categories for each, including Turn 10 picks and popular downloads, help the cream rise, making sure you can marvel at the excruciating work others put into their creations.

Hated
Wait... You Lost Me At Tuning: Given Forza Motorsport 3's easing into the simulation space—auto upgrades, driving assists, free cars!—I was a little disappointed to not see the same attention paid to the games tuning portions. Yes, these sections are simple to muck with, offering mostly clear explanations of what each tuning characteristic does, and Turn 10 offers a handy benchmarking option, but I was hoping for some suggested tuning options. Fortunately, the community appears to be picking up the slack.

As you might have gathered, I am not the driving sim authority capable of deeming whether Forza Motorsport 3 is the "definitive" racing game of this generation. What I can tell you is that the game, including its single-player Season Play mode and its ample online multiplayer modes, are incredibly fun to play, whether you prefer to keep the accelerator jammed or watch telemetry data tell you just how mangled your 10,000 credit tire upgrade has become over the course of a 34 lap endurance race.

This is a beautiful, broad package, one that was surprising in its most personally important aspect—how fun Forza 3 was to play. It may or may not be definitive, but Forza 3 is a must have for the Xbox 360 owning driving enthusiast. And maybe even the casual Sunday driver.

Forza Motorsport 3 was developed by Turn 10 Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 on October 27. Retails for $59.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played through three seasons of career mode, played multiple online multiplayer races of each type.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

"We are not going to produce a gimmicky feature that just takes advantage of motion controls when it doesn't feel right," he added. "We're not going to make a feature that's not fun. If there's an opportunity to do it, we will definitely investigate it. If it's fun we will leave it in the game."

In late June, Bungie studio head perked up ears when he said the forthcoming Halo: Reach "could be enabled with" Natal. Cutting's remarks at least hedge the idea that it will.

Asked if Natal can accommodate the FPS, Cutting analogized it back to the FPS coming from its established mouse-and-keyboard base on the PC to dual-analog sticks with Halo earlier this decade.

"I think FPS, there's a lot to be said for dual stick control. But, you know, before dual sticks came around and before Halo: Combat Evolved established it on a console, people were pretty doubtful about that, that it could ever move from keyboard and mouse. So we've seen it already from one control scheme to another."

MS: We'll only do Natal Halo 'when it makes sense' [Videogamer.com via Joystiq]

As you can see, for a brief time there was a forum for something called "Halo: Reach." A 2001 novel called "Halo: The Fall of Reach" is official, canonical, and functions as the prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved. It was also the basis for a spec script Stuart Beattie wrote for a Halo movie. Also, back in September, Phil Spencer indicated four Halo "things" were in development, two being Halo Wars, the Halo: Chronicles project said to be linked to Peter Jackson. A third can be assumed to be Halo 3: ODST, announced about a month after that interview. So is Halo: Reach the fourth thing?

The anonymous guy who gave us the search menu image yesterday claimed Halo: Reach is slated for Fall 2010, and this forum plus an ODST forum will go live June 1. Take that with a truckload of salt, but I guess it could point to an E3 announce for this Reach thing.

The site Skoar! has posted links to cached forum posts, on Bungie.net, referencing the slip-up. I took a screen shot (below) in case the cache has been cleared out by the time you read this. There's also discussion of it on Halo.Bungie.Org.

Cached Pages of Halo: Reach Discussion [Skoar!, thanks Heliophage and JihadJoe343]

The full catalog was not specified in the GameTap news release of Thursday. GameTap said only that its users "will have access to a selection of beloved classics from Microsoft such as Age of Mythology, Age of Empires 2, Rise of Nations, Freelancer, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Mech Warrior 4: Mercenaries and the Zoo Tycoon series. "

The deal brokered is for U.S. and European subscription play rights, GameTap said.

In Halo Wars, gamers return to the beloved Xbox franchise to explore its early days in a real-time strategy title by Ensemble Studios. The game promises the chance to control not one Master Chief, but an army of marines, Spartans, Warthogs and Scorpions.

Can Halo Wars ride on the success of its lineage and, with the help of some of the best real-time strategy developers in the business, do for strategy what the original title did for shooters?

Loved
Essence of Halo: The biggest selling point for this strategy game is its setting, characters and story. Set in the Halo universe, Halo Wars delivers across the board on everything a Halo fan could want, from a tightly paced plot, to memorable characters, to the rush of commanding a squad of Spartans

Cut Scenes: One of the best parts of this game are the cut scenes. Delivered in amazing detail with highly polished graphics, there's enough there to keep you captivated throughout the single player campaign.

Graphics: The cut scenes are spectacular, but the gameplay graphics are just as adept at delivering an eye-catching experience. Units from the UNSC, Covenant and Flood are all meticulously detailed and the backdrops vary just enough to keep things interesting.

Eclectic Missions: Instead of having gamers run through a familiar gauntlet of control points and forward bases, Halo Wars relies heavily on the story to create an interesting selection of missions on multiple settings, from ship hulls, to infested planets. You even have to solve a puzzle in one.

Strategic Strategy: The smartest thing that Ensemble Studios did in making Halo Wars was realizing the limitations of playing a strategy game on a console. You don't have a keyboard of hot keys, or a mouse to zip around the map with. So the game limits the size of maps, units and pushes things to the point of being hard to manage, but not frustrating.

Hated
Simplistic: While creating a strategy game too complex for console controls would have killed Halo Wars, making it a tad too simple means hardcore strategy fans will at best find this game a brief amusement. Gamers new to the genre might find it a good introduction to strategy.

No Hot Keys: While Ensemble Studios couldn't include keyboard controls in the game, it would have been nice for them to come up with a better system for group selecting and saving to buttons. As it stands, you can only really jump between types of units or local and all units. Something that severely hampers the experience.

Camera Issues: The camera works relatively well, though I noticed that it got hung up on scenery around the border of maps at times. My biggest complaint, though, is that the zoom doesn't zoom enough. There were plenty of times when I wanted to really zoom in and watch a Spartan beat down a bad guy and steal his vehicle, but the zoom doesn't offer that level of detail.

Not Many Units: There really aren't many units to pick from in the game. In the single player this isn't that evident, but once you start slugging it out with real people online you start to realize that there's not much to choose from in this game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Limited Multiplayer: Real-time strategy games, like first-person shooters, live and die in multiplayer gaming. After you get through the game's 14 single-player levels, that's the only reason you'll still play it. But there's just not much there. No multiplayer Flood. No massive battles. Not much of a map selection.

I enjoyed my time with Halo Wars, it was just too short for a game that I can't see myself playing much online. Perhaps gamers would have been better served if this iteration of Halo Wars included more campaigns, played from the perspective of the Covenant and Flood, and less multiplayer.

It's odd, being a long-time fan of both strategy games and Ensemble Studios, to love the single-player experience of a game they made, but feel so flat about the multiplayer sessions. Halo Wars is a fun ride, an action strategy game that delivers on everything but, perhaps, where it needs to deliver most to succeed: multiplayer gaming.

Halo Wars was developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. It will be released on March 3, for $60. Played single player campaign to completion, played multiple battles on Xbox Live against other players.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ

From intent to mechanics, the mission brief for the iNiS team was never “make an original, inspiring music title for the Xbox 360”. It was “do SingStar, but on the Xbox 360”. And that’s exactly how we’re going to assess the game.

So, does it “do” SingStar on the 360? Or even outdo SingStar on the 360? Let’s find out.

Loved
Slick – Oh boy is this game slick. Where SingStar is a cold, sterile affair, Lips is bursting with flair, from jazzy menu screens to OTT song ratings and a ridiculous levelling-up system.

iNiS – Which leads me to my next love. The iNiS touch. If Microsoft were looking for their karaoke game to be packed full of cute custom videos and game modes – including bringing two love birds together through song and defusing a bomb with your voice – that bring home the smiles, then they got what they were looking for.

Library Expansion – My 360 is linked to my PC via Media Centre, and Lips is able to instantly recognise songs shared via the service and import them into the game. Adding thousands of songs – all of them favourites of mine – to the game is a promising touch.

Hardware – The one area Lips really trounces SingStar. The game’s motion-sensitive, wireless mics are well-made, can be shook to simulate instruments when you’re not singing and, once synched to your 360, are easy to manage. Perhaps the neatest features are the fact their bases glow in time with the music, and idle mics need only be picked up and shaken to turn a solo song into a duet.

Hated
It Doesn’t Work – You know how SingStar (and Rock Band, and GH: World Tour) works? With the words displayed across the screen ahead of time? Yeah, Lips does that too. Except, instead of showing 10-15 words, it shows 3-4. Which means if you don’t already know the words (and timing) to a song, you’re totally fucked.

It Doesn’t Work – Importing thousands of my own songs was both easy and promising. Pity, then, they’re largely useless. You don’t get lyrics, you don’t get a music video, Lips won’t even use/download the song’s album art. It just plays the song, and asks you to sing along, scoring you on how you match the “sound” of the song. Making things worse, it can’t tell the difference between music and lyrics, meaning some game modes farcically require you to make the “waah waah” noises of a guitar to stay in the game.

It…You Get The Idea – The game’s scoring system is either lenient or broken. It’s hard to tell which, but going off the success iNiS have had with the rest of the mechanics, I’m assuming it’s the latter. Gentle humming can see you through most songs, while for high notes, the game seems almost random in deciding whether you're hitting them or not.

Look, Lips, you tried. You’re charming, you look nice, your initial song selection is surprisingly great and your wireless mics are fantastic. Your heart was in the right place. But you just can’t work as a karaoke game when your mechanics are as broken as they are. See, karaoke games are for parties. There are all types of folks at parties. And if you need to know every word and every piece of timing for a song, it’s useless, because the average person doesn’t know that.

Maybe next time – if the market affords you a next time – spend more time copying what SingStar did right (the nuts and bolts of scoring a karaoke session…ie, the important stuff) instead of what it did wrong (its cold presentation, which really, doesn’t matter), because as it stands, it’s hard to recommend Lips in the state it’s in, whether someone has access to a Sony console/SingStar franchise or not.

Lips was developed by iNiS and published by Microsoft Games Studios, released in North America on Nov. 18 for Xbox 360. Retails for $69.99. Played all songs in both single and multiplayer, either in co-op or vs mode.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

There was that short, rather unsatisfying story, the shallow, almost stereotypical characters, the paltry eight-person multiplayer engagements. With Gears of War 2, Epic Games promises a title that is bigger, better and more badass than the first. Does that mean we can expect some story to go along with all of those chainsaw kills and blood baths or will plot continue to be superfluous as the franchise marches ever onward toward its culminating third game.

Hit the jump to find out.

Loved
Tight Pacing, Eclectic Maps: With 29 chapters spread out over five acts, Gears of War 2 has plenty of room to stretch its legs. Fortunately, it takes advantage of that. Instead of forcing gamers to slog their way through endless subterranean and oppressively dark settings, the game delivers fragfests in Alpine forests, dilapidated hospitals, across the expanse of a massive city. And the key encounters among that collection of maps are tightly paced, managing to maintain your interest no matter where you are.

Epic Battles: One of the problems the original Gears faced was that players never got a proper sense of scale for their encounters. Instead of feeling like part of a world-wide effort to save humanity, it felt more like a handful of guys taking on a bunch of Locust. This time around Epic Games goes out of its way to remind the gamer not only what’s at stake, but just how large the effort is. There are times when the ragged landscape fills with a sea of Locust, when enemies are in the sky, on the hills and swarming up from underground. I just wish they happened more often.

Single Player Tweaks: The original Gears brought a lot of refinement to the shooter genre. This time around the changes aren’t as evident, but still make for a much deeper experience. For instance you can now crawl around after getting knocked to the verge of death, seeking someone to revive you. (On the harder levels, you just die.) There are also a number of new ways to take out a downed enemy, including using them as a “meat shield.” I found the tweak that has the biggest impact on the single-player experience is the Locusts’ new found ability to revive one another. Now you aren’t the only one crawling around looking for a little help. And if you don’t take care of these stragglers they’ll come back to take you out.

Vehicles of Mass Destruction: I’m not a big fan of vehicles in shooters, especially vehicle levels. I find that they tend to ruin the experience, stripping away the tactical nuance found in most shooters and replacing it with a rail-shooter aesthetic. Fortunately, Epic Games avoided that trap in their vehicles. Instead they use these few levels to help move players across expansive terrain and with perhaps one exception, they’re as nuanced and fun to play as the feet on the ground levels. Oh, and riding a Brumak into battle: Tons of fun.

Character Development: In general I don’t play shooters to get all touchy-feely. I really don’t care who lives and dies in these games, and trying to get me to do so inevitably irritates more than it evokes. But when it works, it works well. In the case of Gears 2, the game tiptoes around the over-the-top emotional string tugs but still delivers enough emotional punches to make me worry over Fenix and his pals.

Horde: This new multiplayer mode is a lot more addictive than it sounds. You drop a bunch of players, up to five of them, into a map and then fill it with an increasingly large batch of Locust until everyone dies. There’s something terrifically satisfying about hunkering down with a group of pals trying to stave off wave after wave of Locust in a struggle to survive 50 waves of Locust.

Multiplayer Mayhem: Horde isn’t the only change made to Gears of War 2’s multiplayer. This time around, Epic Games tried to achieve the same reach in their multiplayer modes as they sought in their single player campaign. The game includes seven versus modes, more than double the amount that shipped with the original title. You can also now play with up to nine others, either real players or bots. And if you’re more into Co-Op, the co-op campaign mode now allows the two gamers to play on different difficulty settings in the same game.

Hated
Pain in Your Ear: I get that I'm a cog in a much larger military machine and that on occasion I'm going to need to report back to folks. But does that mean I can't do simple things like reload my weapon or pick up ammo while I'm talking into my earpiece. Let's hope the Locust don't attack while Fenix is chewing a stick of gum.

Story Arc: Epic nailed the character development of Gears of War 2, but the story, not so much. There were plenty of things I learned, plenty of interesting developments and twists that unraveled as I made my way through the nine hour or so campaign. But a lot of that either came out of left field or was left dangling when the surprisingly abrupt, incredibly flat ending hit me in the face. Of course there's going to be a sequel, but I think the story arc needs to be more of an actual arc and less of a bumpy ride to be satisfying across all three games.

Normal Is a Bit Casual: It's funny that the developers felt that the needed to add another easy setting to the game because they thought casual was a bit too hard. I thought it was a bit too easy in the first game and this time around, playing at normal, I only died a handful of times, almost always because of bad vehicular mishaps or wrong turns. Playing through the campaign on Insane now finally gives me the challenge I was looking for.

Gears of War 2 is a satisfying middle child for what I can only expect will be the Gears trilogy. It ups the gameplay, tweaks the mechanics and finally digs into that deep potential, delivered in sweeping scale and backdrops, through a plot that both intrigues gamer and fills out the title's many interesting characters. I only wish the game's sense of purpose and pacing continued until the very end of this latest game, rather than drying up a few chapters early.

Does Gears of War 2 reinvent the genre or even the franchise? No, but it doesn't need to. Instead it works on expanding it's polish and it's scope to include not only the gameplay mechanics, but the story, the settings and the characters. And I think that's plenty.

Gears of War 2 was developed by Epic Games, published by Microsoft Games Studio and released on Nov. 7 for Xbox 360. Retails for $59.99 USD. Completed single-player campaign alone, tested campaign coop, Horde and other multiplayer modes.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

"Microsoft has confirmed the addition of Ryan Payton, formerly of Kojima Productions to Microsoft Game Studios," said Phil Spencer, in a prepared statement sent to Kotaku. "Payton joins a group of industry heavy hitters to recently arrive at Microsoft Game Studios, including Corrine Yu from Gearbox and Kenneth Scott of id Software, as well as David Wu from Pseudo Interactive and Frank O’Connor, a Bungie veteran. Microsoft Game Studios is thrilled to have such talented people working to develop new and exciting projects within the Halo universe and supporting existing projects from studios like Bungie and Ensemble."

While the official statement doesn't go into details about Payton's job, we've been told he will be the creative director for the upcoming Peter Jackson Halo game.

New Halo Helmed by MGS 4 Producer [Kotaku]

Gamasutra theorizes that this new team may be hard at work on one of the currently unannounced Halo universe projects, the one that isn't Halo Wars, Halo: Chronicles and whatever Halo thing Bungie is rumored to be working on. We're not sure how they came to this conclusion, other than the "spawnpoint" in the team's name and the unknown ownership of the fourth Halo "thing," but maybe they know something we don't know.

MGS' New Halo Team Name - Spawnpoint Studios? [Gamasutra]

Tiny figures with little articulation sold in three packs? Sounds like someone wants us to create our own giant Halo Wars dioramas. If only I had a basement. Hit the jump for more details, including the composition of each of the first series packs.

FIGURES AVAILABLE IN SPRING 2009 'If they want war, we'll give them war!'

TEMPE, Ariz., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ — Today McFarlane Toys along with Microsoft Game Studios have announced the availability of action figures for "Halo Wars," the strategy video game based on the legendary "Halo(R)" universe for the Xbox 360. The figures are expected to hit mass retailers in spring 2009 and retail for around $10 each.

"Halo Wars" is a real-time action strategy game created exclusively for the Xbox 360 that allows players to shrewdly direct UNSC forces in realistic warfare. Set early in the epic war between the Covenant and UNSC made famous
by the "Halo" first person shooter games, "Halo Wars" allows players to command the armies of the UNSC during their initial encounters with the Covenant, including familiar units such as UNSC Marines, Scorpion Tanks and the iconic Warthog. It provides a fresh perspective on the war while bringing new heroes to the battle. "Halo Wars" will be available from Microsoft Game Studios in early 2009.

The figures are 2.5 inches tall and have mobility at the waist. Each three-pack features "Halo Wars" characters with different poses and colors with "Halo" weapons. Series One features four unique three-packs:

SET 1: UNSC TROOPS
3 - SPARTAN soldiers (with Assault Rifles)

SET 2: UNSC TROOPS
1 - SPARTAN soldier (with an Assault Rifle)
1 - SPARTAN soldier (with two Magnums)
1 - Marine Infantry (with an Assault Rifle)

SET 3: UNSC TROOPS
2 - SPARTAN soldiers (one with two Plasma Pistols and one with an
Assault Rifle)
1 - Marine Infantry (with a Assault rifle)

SET 4: COVENANT TROOPS
2 - Elites (with Plasma Rifles)
1 - Grunt (with a Needler)

Stay tuned to http://www.SPAWN.com for all the latest news

Microsoft Games Studios recently unveiled this fancy new Halo Wars box art and three pretty enticing screens for their upcoming Halo-themed real-time strategy title.

Hit the jump for the screens.

Kim, who headed up the studio for four years, will be replaced by Phil Spencer, who formerly headed up the Microsoft Game Studios in Europe.

“We’re strategically positioning the leadership team to drive every aspect of the Xbox business to new heights,” said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business. “I firmly believe that Microsoft will lead the next great innovations in games and entertainment. Today’s organizational announcements align us to accelerate this expansive growth.”

Microsoft has not yet found a replacement for Bell who is said to be leaving to "pursue other opportunities outside of Microsoft."

“The time is right for me to pursue my life’s passion of consumer brand marketing and the creative and services that drive it.” Bell said “Coming from automotive, and now technology and entertainment, I am excited to expand to new industries and categories.”

Hit the jump for the full release and more Mattrick-y quotes.

Interactive Entertainment Business Leadership Team Positioned to Drive Next Wave of Growth and Audience Expansion
Microsoft announces new leadership roles for Shane Kim and Phil Spencer and the departure of Jeff Bell.

REDMOND, Wash. — June 12, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced a new leadership structure in its Interactive Entertainment Business, assembled to align with future business development opportunities.
Shane Kim will assume the role of corporate vice president of Strategy and Business Development, a newly established role in Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business. In addition, Phil Spencer, a Microsoft Game Studios veteran for six years, will assume leadership of all first-party development and publishing efforts worldwide. Both leaders will report directly to Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business.
After spending four and a half years leading the transformation of Microsoft Game Studios into a world-class entertainment publisher, Kim will now explore new growth opportunities with partners across all parts of the global Interactive Entertainment Business. His focus will be on future external relationships and partnerships, as well as developing growth strategies for the entire business.
Formerly the general manager of Microsoft Game Studios Europe, Spencer will return to Redmond from the U.K.to take on his new role as general manager of the global Microsoft Game Studios business. Spencer will oversee the creation of new, unannounced franchises that aim to attract new audiences. His teams will foster some of today’s most beloved entertainment franchises, including “Halo,” “Gears of War” and “Fable,” by continuing to partner with the industry’s best developers to deliver the best games for the Windows and Xbox platforms.
“We’re strategically positioning the leadership team to drive every aspect of the Xbox business to new heights,” Mattrick said. “I firmly believe that Microsoft will lead the next great innovations in games and entertainment. Today’s organizational announcements align us to accelerate this expansive growth.”
After two years of driving a cultural change in the way Microsoft markets its entertainment brands, Jeff Bell, current corporate vice president of Global Marketing for Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, has decided to pursue other opportunities outside Microsoft. Bell will remain at Microsoft through the summer, working with Mattrick to ensure a smooth transition of his responsibilities. In the interim while Microsoft searches for Bell’s replacement, Matt Barlow, Charlotte Stuyvenberg and Jim Merrick, all day-to-day product marketing and marketing communications leaders in the Interactive Entertainment Business, will carry forward global marketing initiatives for the business group.
“The time is right for me to pursue my life’s passion of consumer brand marketing and the creative and services that drive it.” Bell said “Coming from automotive, and now technology and entertainment, I am excited to expand to new industries and categories.”
“We thank Jeff for his achievements and contributions to Microsoft and the Xbox business. His innovative marketing programs included award-winning Xbox brand marketing campaigns, as well as world-renowned creative for ‘Gears of War’ and ‘Halo 3,’” Mattrick said. “We wish Jeff nothing but the best in his future endeavors.”

...you know, we have a great internal racing studio in Turn 10, the creators of Forza Motorsport. And our goal is to roll the studio so that they can do more creative execution within the racing space. So you can imagine a future where they would develop a new version of Project Gotham Racing.

Shane Kim Interview [Kikizo]

In the late 90s Rare established themselves as a top-tier studio, producing such classics as GoldenEye and Donkey Kong Country for Nintendo. But in 2002, Microsoft bought up the company and prepared to have the studio start work on some of the marquee titles for their upcoming Xbox 360.

I told Kim that back before the Xbox 360 launched I had heard that Rare's Perfect Dark Zero was meant to be the platform's launch title, the reason gamers would take notice of the 360 and decide to buy into the new platform.

When the game finally hit, with the launch of the 360 and Rare's other title Kameo, it was met with a mixed reception, certainly not the sort that Microsoft had bet on.

Is Rare, I asked Kim, a developer that better suited to the audience and platforms of Nintendo gaming?

The short answer, Kim said, is no. But he did acknowledge that Rare hasn't yet met it's full potential on the Xbox 360. Neither Perfect Dark Zero or Kameo were the massive hits that Microsoft expects and Viva Pinata, he said, was a game that attracted a casual audience but was much deeper than that sort of gamer expected or was interested in playing.

But Rare's upcoming titles could turn that around. Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, for instance, hopes to fix that disconnect between the audience it attracted and its accessibility by adding online and local co-op and tweaking gameplay.

And while Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts isn't a true sequel to the franchise, its concept, a vehicle platformer, was entirely the idea of Rare and its developers.

Hopefully today will give me a chance to see if Rare has been able to turn it around and get back to making games like Goldeneye rather than Grabbed By The Ghoulies.

Tsunoda, who was unfortunate enough to be sitting right next to me, spent much of the evening trying not to answer questions about Gears of War 2 and his new role as the game's general manager. He said he felt fortunate to be working at Microsoft Game Studio and in particular to be working with Cliff Bleszinski and the folks at Epic Games.

MTV's Stephen Totilo and I tried to pin Tsunoda down on how the game would fit into the Gears universe. Was it, Totilo asked, part of a trilogy. We haven't decided yet, Tsunoda responded and then tried to change the topic, saying that the game has plenty of things to do in the way of improving on the original title.

Multiplayer, for instance, has a lot of potential, though he can't talk about it quite yet. Cover will be destructible this time around, he added. And by cover he doesn't just mean the rock walls and building remnants, he's also talking about grabbing bad guys and hiding behind them, something Tsunoda referred to as "meat shields". And yes, it seems that these meat shields will be "destructible" too.

What are they doing for the ladies this time around, Totilo wanted to know. Are they going to make it more accessible or interesting to women somehow.

Tsunoda sort of ducked the answer, but when I asked him if they were considering perhaps adding a romantic interest to the plot, he said yes, there would be a love interest this time around.

Given the tone of the dinner, it was hard to tell if he was serious or joking, but either way it raises an interesting point: Should the Gears of War sequel have more interpersonal relationships, should there be a love interest in the game?

I think that one of the things that hurt the original title was its story, in particular its ending , so building in a relationship, one that could be used to make the game more emotion certainly couldn't hurt. At least that's my take. What's yours?

Check out Totilo's take on the dinner as well.

[Pic from MTV Multiplayer]

Schiesel began his line of questioning by addressing some of the Microsoft's talent losses over the past year, specifically inquiring into the departure of star developer Bungie. "I think that was a case of a creative team really wanting to just be independent," he said, brushing off rumors that the team felt creatively stifled, saying "No studio had more creative freedom within Microsoft than Bungie."

On the rest of the departures, Kim called those acquisitions "the nature of the industry", explaining that the company doesn't dictate what other publishers do.

Kim responded to questions that the Xbox 360 line-up for 2008 appeared to be a bit thinner than that of 2007, "I think the pipeline is very stacked. You just don't know about it yet." The Microsoft exec was quiet on currently unannounced titles, but did point to a trio of top-tier games the publisher will focus on in Halo Wars, Alan Wake and Fable 2.

He pointed to Microsoft's first-party studios need to shoulder the burden for creating exclusive content for both the Xbox 360 and Windows platform, saying that they're watching competitors like Sony and Nintendo's first party offerings closely. "I don't think anyone should underestimate Sony," he said, calling both "formidable" competitors. "To count them out would be a foolish mistake."

While he praised the Wii's casual market acceptance, calling it "great for the entire industry", he questioned how financially successful it was when compared against Microsoft's box. He pointed to 40% of the game-buying public's dollars going toward Xbox 360 games, hardware and accessories. "How are they using the console?" he asked of the Wii consumer "Are they buying a lot of games?"

When asked if Microsoft being outsold by Nintendo worldwide represented a failure, when compared to the company's goal to be number one in any space it's in, Kim said that "No one should be surprised by Nintendo." Kim tempered that praise, telling Schiesel "I think it's way too early to declare a winner here."

Kim said not to expect a lifespan for the Xbox 360 on par with its predecessor, pointing to the strategic benefit of launching a year before a pair of current-gen competitors.

But what about new video game ventures for the company? Microsoft's Zune, Scheisel added, was behind the curve in the gaming space when compared to its biggest competitor, the iPod. While Kim left the door open, saying "Never say never", he was realistic about the investment required. "Clearly it's a big business, but launching a portable device, it's just like launching an Xbox 360. You have to step back and ask devoting whatever resources you would have to make the Zune a multifunction device, is that really the best way to go from a company standpoint?"

This weekend's 1UP Yours podcast re-ignited the Microsoft rumor mill, hinting none-too-subtly that Microsoft Game Studios head Shane Kim may be the one on the way out.

When discussing last week's rumor, 1UP's Garnet Lee teased N'Gai Croal with the hint "Hey, N'Gai, do you watch any Nickelodeon like 'Something Possible'?" when the topic surfaced. One could then assume that Lee was referring to the cartoon "Kim Possible" and that the reference was in relation to Mr. Kim from Microsoft. How's that for confirmation?

Bettenhausen chimed in with the "Rumors about Microsoft canceling games and rumors about people leaving Microsoft aren't new. We've been having these for five years. And, the leakiest company around, a lot of times these things turn out to be true." Former GameVideos director Mark MacDonald later tempered the rumor's reality with a warning that the rumor was "something you kind of just heard" as opposed to something that sounded more confirmed.

To hear more of the discussion, skip to about (this is not a typo) 2 hours, 40 minutes into the criminally long recent podcast.

1UP Yours - November 16, 2007 [1UP]