Even Peter Moore seemed subdued.

When, near the end of Microsoft's E3 press briefing the normally irrepressible pitchman uveiled a special-edition olive green Halo 3 Xbox 360, the crowd hardly reacted. Perhaps sensing this, Moore quickly stashed the console - for which no price was mentioned - and moved on to some Halo 3 video clips.

From where GP sat, it was like that all night long - a press conference overly long on details, short on new information and lacking the hoped-for price cuts on 360 hardware.

The night started strong in the outdoor ampitheatre at Santa Monica High, as a five-piece band described as Halo fans played some stirring music from the game series. The woman soloing on the violin was especially good.

But it was all downhill from there - nothing unexpected, nothing exciting. Perhaps it was the smaller, more professional media crowd which lacked the usual enthusiasm of past E3 events packed with fanboys. Maybe it was residual gloom over the 360's ongoing hardware troubles, which have the potential to move from problem to scandal status in the near future.

In any case, not a good showing by Microsoft.