And Surface may indeed have some priceless magic in it. But the question, ultimately, is whether Microsoft can get people to pay a price for that magic. There's a giant shadow looming over the launch of Surface and Windows 8: Windows Phone. The first salvo of the new Microsoft, meant to boldly relaunch Microsoft's mobile efforts, has pretty much been a failure in the market despite being an early hit with critics and having hundreds of millions of dollars spent on marketing it between Microsoft, carriers and hardware partners. (Gartner numbers put its marketshare in the US at just 3.9 percent.) And if you think a back a little harder, it was only three years ago that Microsoft launched the Zune HD, an earlier attempt at producing a totally integrated device that was truly one of Microsoft's better products, but a complete disaster in the market. Both great products, both bombed. So by far the most outwardly tense part of the day comes when we bombard Sinofsky with questions essentially about how Microsoft plans to get people to buy this thing.

The answers weren't very satisfying or revealing — big ad campaigns and consumer education! That didn't work for Windows Phone, and the problem Surface faces is in fact more profound than the one Windows Phone faced. Not only does it have a similar problem in that it doesn't immediately sell how it could be better than the other things on the market, like the iPad, there's an inherent point of confusion built into the product. (If it could, I do not think we would've been standing in the heart of Microsoft.) Surface runs "Windows," but it won't run old Windows apps because it's running a different kind of Windows, called RT. Yet, another version of Surface, coming in a few months, will run old Windows apps because it's got a full version of Windows 8. Got all that? Sinofsky explains that you will get that, and that the context of Surface within the greater sphere of Windows 8 will be made totally clear by the titanic marketing strategy Microsoft has planned. The implication he makes is that Surface doesn't have to talk about Windows 8 in its ads because you'll have already seen Windows 8 ads and been sold on the fact that you need Windows 8. I would love to believe him, as I have all day, but it's the one thing he says that does not feel right.

The extent of Microsoft's caution is fully revealed by the fact that it's only selling the Surface in its own stores — of which there are only 30 or so, with another 30 pop-ups opening for the holidays — and online. It not only allows Microsoft to carefully manage the experience of anybody buying a Surface, but by narrowing the launchpad so intensely, it also provides a fair amount of insulation from any criticism of Surface's sales, should they suck terribly. Which might seem like NBD, but given its past problems with Zune and Windows Phone, any perception of weak sales could be poison to Surface. Microsoft is looking for another Kinect, which became the fastest-selling piece of consumer electronics in history.

What's incredible about the future for Microsoft is that for the first time in a long time, no one knows what that looks like. If Windows 8 and Surface — and to a lesser extent, Windows Phone 8 and Xbox — kill it, we could see a brand new kind of Microsoft, one that's become relevant again not through show of force, but by simply making good shit. If Surface and Windows 8 bomb, the word "Microsoft" may never carry the same meaning ever again.

Walking out of Store Zero an hour later, I could only think that Surface is going to make some kind of history for Microsoft, one way or another.