So I got a press release earlier today about a game that's about to appear in stores, and something caught my eye: "Get ready to crank up the speakers once again, as Activision’s Guitar Hero II prepares for its highly anticipated world tour onto next-gen videogame consoles by announcing it has gone green, and is now ready for production on the Microsoft Xbox 360."

Wait - gone _green_? When I worked in the industry, though this was admittedly 4 or 5 years ago now, 'gone gold' was always the standard, and it's still being used in press commentary even now. However, 'gone gold' does confuse people sometimes because they think of it like a gold or platinum record - something to do with sales, as opposed to the gold master that gets shipped for duplication.

Anyhow, I pinged RedOctane's Bryan Lam on this very question, since he helped craft the press release, and he kindly replied, explaining that 'gone green' is "...Microsoft’s version of going gold, and we felt it was appropriate to use the term “gone green” to highlight our initial efforts to bring the Guitar Hero franchise onto the Xbox 360 and other next-gen platforms. Not to mention, it's also St. Patty's Day coming up! The phrase isn’t often used within the enthusiast press, though it’s an acknowledged term within the industry."

In fact, yep, a Google search for the term reveals that pretty much only RedOctane and Activision have come out in favor of talking in public about this new term - presumably Microsoft's reference that the game is getting a green light to be manufactured [EDIT: Also because lots of X360-related things are green!], and doing away with the concept that you're burning a gold-colored CDR or whatever - which makes sense. But how far can 'gone green' go as a phrase? I, for one, welcome our new green overlords.