If you fancy getting your hands on Gears of War before the 17th November then HMV are offering just that, as long as you buy it as part of an Xbox 360 bundle.

We were alerted to this fact by a friend of HEXUS who emailed the company to ask whether the offer was real. This was their response:

Dear XXXX XXXX

Thankyou for your recent email.

I believe the item which you are looking for is gears of war if you buy the entire package you will receive the game with it at the same time. unfortunately if you want to purchase the game on its own it is not released until the 17-11-2006.

I hope this has helped.

Many kind regards.

XXX XXXX

HMV Customer Services

We've removed the name of the representative because we wouldn't want to get him in trouble if he's made a mistake.

The package has been advertised on the site since November 3rd, so if HMV are correct in their reply, there will be gamers playing Gears of War by the middle of next week.

We'd guess that HMV don't know what they are talking about and have made a mistake (or it's a clever bit of marketing to shift some consoles), but the official word says that if you are that desperate to get your hands on one of the most anticipated games of 2006 before anyone else, you can. We're sure Microsoft may have something to say on the matter.

Source : HMV