Warfare 2 console!

Grab your fatigues and warm up your trigger finger. I just got a chance to play the newest title in the CALL OF DUTY franchise: MODERN WARFARE 2. I’ll have the game details for you soon, but I couldn’t wait to tell you about the biggest announcement of the night: the limited edition CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2 console. This beast is sporting a 250 gig hard drive, (twice the size of the regular console) and comes with two controllers, and, of course, the game. It’s a mere $399. For an extra hundred smackaroos, you not only get to kick the virtual asses of your buddies, but make them jealous of your fancy hardware as well.

Despite the chaos of the event, I managed to corner Albert Penello, Senior Director of Global Marketing at Xbox, who told me a little about the brand new gamey goodness. “We’ve been fans of Infinity Ward and fans of the CALL OF DUTY series since we launched Xbox. CALL OF DUTY 2 was a launch title. When a big game like this comes out, it’s fun to work with passionate developers and passionate group like this to kind of create something unique and special. We knew this game was going to be huge. One of the biggest of the year. Every once in a while, it’s fun to get the teams together and we did this once when HALO 3 came out…it’s a good conversion. We were able to bring a bigger hard drive because there’s a lot of downloadable content, include the game, the two controllers…there’s still a lot of new people coming into the market right now.”

Really? I’m not buying that for a second. There are plenty of people out there who want another Xbox, but if you don’t have one by now, you’re not a console gamer. (If you’re just getting into gaming through the Wii, you are excused.) Anyway, the thing looks damn cool, and needs to live in my den.

The console is available for pre-order right this very moment in the US and will be released in Europe later this week.