CES: Halo Wars Demo Dated, Full Release Pushed Up

If there's one thing Microsoft's keynote at CES tonight taught me, it's that Microsoft Entertainment and Devices President Robbie Bach is juggling a weird variety of stuff right now. After the mighty Steve Ballmer stalked the stage, proclaiming the awesome virtues of Windows in all its mysterious forms for much of the first half of the press conference, Bach tagged in to talk briefly about a few of the random-ass projects his division's working on. This includes Sync, the in-car communications system developed with Ford that will play your iPod (or Zune!) and read your text messages to you out loud; the Zune; Media Center; and Mediaroom, which is Microsoft's IPTV project that I still don't really understand. If you told me that the Entertainment and Devices devision was also handling an antique appraisal program for Microsoft, I do not think I would be surprised.

Much like this story, Bach eventually got down to business with some fresh news about Halo Wars. The release date for this Halo-themed real-time strategy game--a game that is to be the final project from longtime RTS developer Ensemble Studios before it shuts down--had earlier been set to March 3rd of this year, but apparently things have been going swimmingly enough that it's now been pushed up to February 28th. Additionally, a demo for the game is set to hit Xbox Live on February 5th. Bach also touched briefly on Halo 3: ODST, though he didn't say much other than to reaffirm that game's Fall 2009 release date.

UPDATE: Just got an email from Microsoft's PR agency, stating that there was some confusion about the release date that Robbie Bach dropped on stage at CES. Halo Wars is still coming out in the Americas on March 3rd, though it will hit Japan and Asia on February 26th, and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa on February 27th. If you're wondering where Robbie Bach pulled that February 28th number, join the club!