Here's what happened: These images were created using draft templates for the Games for Windows box art and a variety of Microsoft Game Studios cover images. Gears of War was accidentally included by the artist as one of the MGS titles used as examples to show what our retail setup would look like. This DOES NOT indicate a confirmation that Gears of Wars will be a Games for Windows title -- it was a concept image created by a concept artist, nothing more. In fact, if you look closely you’ll also see that Age of Empires III and Rise of Legends are also branded Games for Windows, and this is not actually the case (Age of Empires III: The Warchiefs is a Games for Windows branded game, but not the original Age III).

We created this image around the E3 timeframe when we were first preparing to announce and show our Games for Windows retail efforts. Shortly after the insanity that is E3, we noticed the box art, and the image was supposed to be removed from circulation. When we provided the package of art assets to PC Gamer for their cover story, we zipped up a directory of our already-public E3 assets as well as more current images (many of which PC Gamer did not use). Unfortunately, we didn't realize that this image was in that directory, and it just happens to be the one that PC Gamer figured prominently in their story. Our bad.