Q: How is Gears of War 2 going?

Mark Rein: We had some folks in recently for the multiplayer play test and it was so much fun. I think the new game types are really good, really fun. Gears was always pretty popular online and it's still - almost two years later - in the top ten on Xbox Live and I think that Gears 2 is an improvement on that on a lot of things.

Q: Do you think Gears of War 2 will push console sales, considering that the biggest launch this year - Grand Theft Auto IV - didn't?

Mark Rein: I think when you get to this part of the life cycle of the console systems, every game helps sells the consoles. So it's hard to say "Oh it's that one game". Plus I also think that for months before a game ships the guys that have really latched onto that game as the reason they're buying the console are probably going to buy the console early and get a game or two.

I think it's a little difficult to always identify that any one game made a spike in console sales or not. Having a great library of games, that's what helps consoles sell. If there's a great game that's coming out, you're probably not going to wait till the day the game comes out to buy the console, because once you've made that emotional decision to spend the money you're probably going to start buying titles.

It's like, back in the day, if you knew a DVD was coming out that you wanted and you didn't have a DVD player you'd probably - once you knew the date it was coming out - buy the DVD player and start building your library before the actual DVD you bought it for came out. So it's the same with games systems.

Q: And are you still not planning on developing any Wii games?

Mark Rein: No we don't have any plans to make something for the Wii. That's like asking a sculptor when he's going to start painting. That's just not our medium. That's not our area of expertise - our area of expertise is the more high-end consoles and things that push technology higher. That's what we do - there's a lot more water in that well for us, when that runs dry then maybe we'd have to think of doing something else but I don't think that well is going to run dry anytime soon.