Prepare to Have Your Mind Blown by the Halo Reach Marketing Campaign

For Bungie's last Halo game, the developers are determined to go out with a bang in terms of game quality. Never one to fall far behind, Microsoft wants to make sure they go out with a bang in sales as well, and they're going to help the game (which already sells itself) with the biggest marketing budget videogames have ever seen, and it all starts tomorrow.

Halo 3 brought in $170 million in first day sales. Modern Warfare 2 brought in $310 million in first day sales. With Halo Reach, Bungie is determined to top them both, and it all starts with a marketing budget that is expected to easily exceed $6.5 million.

The first thing we will be treated to is three new live action short movies, similar to the ODST short we got over a year ago and the birth of a Spartan one we got after that. Director of global marketing communications for Xbox, Taylor Smith, says he believes that these live action shorts better connect players emotionally to the game than CG or game scenes do.

Next up will be another bombardment of Halo sponsored Pepsi products. Expect to see Noble team on your Mountain cans and Doritos bags this fall. Still no word if "game fuel" will return.

Last up is the mysterious viral internet site RememberReach.com, which will launch tomorrow at 3am (eastern). Honestly, I've read what's going on here, but I'm still not sure that even I get it. The site will use a KUKA robotic arm, which is normally used to build cars in assembly lines, to plot a user-generated light sculpture via 54,000 different plots of light and form a memorial to Noble Team. Whatever that means..

UPDATE: Here's a video link explaining the robot arm a bit more in-depth. I'm still not really sure what the point in it is though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC0hG0_rXs8