If you look closely at the COGS that are dangling in that hand you'd see the following serial number: 033-116-117-126-0711. Again, that doesn't tell you much, how is that important? The folks over at Kotaku have decoded that serial number though (I don't know how) they probably ran it through different things until something popped out that made sense. Well in ASCII octal code that translates into ESC-N-O-V-9!
This means, if it is what it appears to be, that Gears of War 2 will come out a week sooner than expected! Now November is still a long way off but a week early is a week early and the little puzzle Epic made for us to solve was nice too, though a little easy.
Regardless of whether it means what we think it means I'm sure Microsoft isn't going to be coy and clever about the release date at E3 next week, the boys from Redmond aren't known for subtlety…
(Thanks, Kotaku.)