'Halo Wars is for Germans' - Microsoft exec

Ensemble Studios' real-time strategy 360 title set in Bungie's elaborate sci-fi universe was the biggest surprise of this week's X06 - and a top Microsoft exec has let slip that Halo Wars has been specifically created to appeal to our European gaming chums.

Chatting away during Microsoft's lavish post-X06 party, we were told by one top Xbox Europe luminary that, while the firm is thrilled with 360's performance so far, it still needs a bit of a nudge in certain territories.

The firm hopes Halo Wars, from the developer of Age of Empires, will give it just that. "It's for the Germans," the exec confided. "We think this genre of game is perfectly suited to Germany, northern and eastern Europe. It illustrates our desire to release games that are appropriate for gamers in all markets."

This strategy is, of course, also being employed in Japan where the US firm hopes Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, from FF creator Sakaguchi-san's Mistwalker studio, will affect a dramatic turnaround in the console's ailing fortunes.

Halo Wars, which is set before the events of Halo 1 ("during the UNSC's first deadly encounters with the Covenant," according to Ensemble), is currently without a release date.