Canadian Xbox News app actually a Halo: Reach ARG
by Richard Mitchell 
on Aug 20th 2010 12:18PM
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.
