SANTA MONICA, California — What secrets lurk back stage at a Microsoft video game briefing? On Tuesday night, the company allowed me and an MTV News producer behind the scenes at Santa Monica High School (that's Samohi to you).
I didn't just find the new Xbox 360 game-show style controller. I found star game designer Cliff Bleszinski and convinced him to strike a pose.
"Do you know why I'm here?" he asked me.
Sure I did, to announce "Gears of War" for PC. He admitted as much and then I asked him -- as I regularly do when I find him at things like this -- questions about a game he won't admit exists: the so-called "Gears of War 2." By the way, he's not to blame for the bad lighting in that picture. That would be me, reduced to using a cell phone camera, because I forgot to clear my honeymoon pictures from my digital camera.
Photo 2 shows what it looked like from the bleachers when Cliff took the stage to showcase "Gears." He's the guy below the yellow skull on the left.
Other "backstage" secrets include the Xbox 360 controller pillow, which was propped in a hotel room where they're going to be demo-ing "Mass Effect." Microsoft let us into the room so we could interview Xbox exec Peter Moore during an excellently-handled time warp of an interview. We pretended the briefing had already happened even though we were chatting an hour before. That's the magic of TV reporting! I'll have a Moore report later this week or early next.
Actually backstage were a trio of 360 controllers. Two were marked for Xbox executive Jeff Bell and New Orleans Saint Reggie Bush. They would use them to play "Madden NFL 08" on stage. And there's that new 360 controller again!
Last, I give you evidence of divine intervention at the Microsoft event. According to the script (wackily illuminated by that cell phone camera), the Almighty had a speaking part introducing Moore. How much did it cost Microsoft to score that exclusive?
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