Gears of War on Windows Denied, More on Trilogy

The recent Gears of War rumor for Windows has been debunked by Microsoft, while Epic Games has asked, "Why stop at a Trilogy?"

The guys over at GamerScoreBlog.com decided to set everyone straight on this story here, where it was noted that a Games for Windows display case included Gears of War. They posted the following on their website in response:

• Yes, Microsoft provided the image that is published in the Games for Windows cover story in the Holiday issue of PC Gamer magazine.
• Yes, this image contains what looks to be box shots of Gears of War with the Games for Windows branding bar on the box art.
• NO, this is not a confirmation, leak, tease, or sly viral attempt to announce, confirm, or admit that Gears of War will be published for Windows.
  

Here's what happened: These images were created using draft templates for the Games for Windows box art and a variety of Microsoft Game Studios cover images. Gears of War was accidentally included by the artist as one of the MGS titles used as examples to show what our retail setup would look like. This DOES NOT indicate a confirmation that Gears of Wars will be a Games for Windows title -- it was a concept image created by a concept artist, nothing more.

Meanwhile, Epic Games responded to this story here, where based on comments made by a Microsoft employee it was thought that Gears would be a trilogy of games. VP Mark Rein said on the Epic forums:

Gears is a trilogy? If we can keep making quality games that fans obviously love then why would we have to stop at three? I don't see the Metal Gear Solid, Mario, Grand Theft Auto or Final Fantasy series (among others) stopping at three and they're still delivering compelling entertainment content that's easily worth the money (see Unreal Tournament as well). There's definitely, as many of you have pointed out, a lot more to learn about what's really happening on the plant Sera and in the lives of the members of Delta Squad.

In the mean time we're working hard to support Gears of War (the first one ) and come up with some great enhancements you'll hopefully see before too long. We're not ready to provide any details yet but I assure you we're on the job.