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Canadian Xbox News app actually a Halo: Reach ARG
Remember the bizarrely out of place Xbox News app on the Canadian Xbox dashboard? It turns out that it was bizarrely out of place for a reason: it's actually part of a Halo: Reach alternate reality game. During the second episode of the program, a news ticker at the bottom of the screen clearly shows information related to Halo. According to Shacknews, the information was apparently meant to alert Canadian gamers to the existence of upcoming Halo: Reach preview events in the Toronto and Vancouver areas. Somewhat more interesting, however, is that the Xbox News program was intended to run for several more episodes before the Halo connection was revealed. A source informed Shacknews that the marketing team behind the ARG skipped ahead to the first Halo-related episode, thanks to the generally negative reaction to the premiere episode. Marketing lesson of the day: make ARGs about something relevant to your audience. Like bees.
Canadian 'Xbox News' dashboard app is devoid of Xbox news [update: It's a Halo ARG]
Update: It turns out the app is actually part of a Halo: Reach ARG in Canada. See our story here for more details. Canadian Xbox users now have a new service on the Dashboard, "Xbox News." Surprisingly, instead of gaming news, the video program offers up "entertainment, human interest, tech, gadget, auto and unique" news stories from Microsoft's MSN. The first episode certainly doesn't offer up hard-hitting news, instead dishing out stories about human dominoes and a paintball facility invaded by bears. ... on second thought, that is hard-hitting news. You can never be too careful with bears. New episodes will be posted to the Canadian Xbox dashboard each evening but, just because it's you, you can watch the first episode after the break. [Thanks, Steve]
