Play Halo all night with Lexus, win MS Points

Lexus is partnering with online gaming service Xbox Live to promote its new 2011 Lexus CT 200h hybrid hatchback by giving away Microsoft Points to lucky gamers. To be eligible to win, users must log on to the Xbox Live service, download the free Lexus All-Nighter Gamer Picture, and then just play Halo: Reach on the night of Saturday, December 18. According to Lexus, the longer you play, the better your odds of winning will be. Of course, that means that people who play all night long will have the best chance of snagging a prize.

Every hour between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. (Pacific Time) on the night of the promotion, Lexus will award eight random players 4,000 Microsoft Points--the currency of the Xbox Live service used to make purchases within the Xbox Live ecosystem. For those unfamilar with the Microsoft-Points-to-dollars conversion rate, 4,000 Points is worth approximately $50 and will get you either five Arcade games, three movie downloads, or 50 Zune songs.

If Lexus' previous marketing efforts are an indication, the Japanese luxury automaker's target demographic tends to be well-heeled baby boomers, which is why its latest partnership with Xbox Live strikes us as a bit odd. But perhaps it shouldn't, as Lexus has been making strides to lower the average age of its target audience with its Dark Ride online advertising campaign for the CT 200h hybrid and its Darkcasting online lifestyle show, which launched last month--a sort of younger, more painfully hip video version of the Lexus Insider lifestyle audio advertorials available as part of the automaker's Enform infotainment suite.

The partnership with Xbox Live will also enable people to download and view episodes of the Darkcasting show from their console's dashboard. (Right about now, you're probably thinking, "That's exactly what Xbox Live needed, more ads!")