Next Generation: Let's talk about Halo 3. What are we up to?

Shane Kim: I call it The Mythical Halo 3 - we haven't announced any such game yet! Obviously the Halo franchise is very important to us. When you have Bill Gates being quoted fairly constantly, talking about a game, you know it's important to the company. But his recent comments reflect the position accurately. Which is that, if there were a Halo 3 we would be careful about how we announce and introduce it.

It's exactly the same way we talked about Halo 2, where people wanted it a year after Halo. That would not have accomplished anything.

Next Generation: Is it coming out this year?

Shane Kim: It depends. If it's the game that everyone is expecting then, yes. For us it's about making a proper impact on the platform. It has to be something with huge significance, so we won't be rushed.

We don't want all the hype and speculation to overshadow some of the great titles that do have coming this holiday and thereafter. Gears of War has an incredible level of anticipation. I think it has more anticipation than Halo did before Halo came out.

If you remember the E3 before the launch [of Xbox] a lot of people were not sure that Halo would be so great. We learned a lot of lessons at that E3. We chose not to show a lot of titles at this past E3. For people in the industry, their first assessment of a title is based on the visual impact.