Despite the chaotic, sluggish and limbo-laden progress of its first game-to-film adaptation (that would be Halo, for all those living under a rock), Microsoft has decided that it still wants to be in the movie business.

Eschewing the show-off tactics that surrounded Halo’s script sale (hapless models dressed as troopers took copies of Alex Garland’s script around to the major studios until a conglomeration of Fox and Universal nabbed it), the company has just gone ahead and flogged their newest attempt - Gears Of War - at an auction run by uber-agency CAA.

So far, all highest bidders New Line has seen is a 21-page treatment, though admittedly it is a treatment written by Collateral scribe Stuart Beattie, with the shiny promise of a script to follow.

And the plot? Gears boasts a slim storyline in the game, one that sees a dinky planet under siege by a swarm of aliens known collectively as the Locust (Geddit?) A small band of elite soldiers, including lead character Marcus Fennix, must retake the world from the evil extraterrestrial hordes. Paging a music video/ads director looking to make his mark in cinema!

Now all they have to hope is that A) a proper budget can be found and B) all those kids who play it on Xbox Live can tear themselves away from their headsets in order to watch something they usually interact with…