Year: 2001

Before we forget – there’s a new German Halo site on the scene – Halo Information Network. I thought i was visiting a german version of Battleground: Halo when I first hit the link, but things got clearer after the splash page. Check ’em out!

More clarification from Timothy Wilson about some of the technical aspects of graphics rendering:Pixel Shaders are a little bit of code that runs per-pixel. They combine textures and may compute lighting. Vertex Shaders are a larger bit of code that runs per-vertex. A vertex shader can move vertices, in addition it may ‘shade’ them. This…

Matt Soell popped into our forum yesterday to clear up questions like “who is behind cortana.org?” and “when will www.bungie.com be updated?” (Read the whole thread for more nuggets – it starts here.) Where’s my Big Mac?

Okay, we’re seriously confused. We misinterpreted John Carswell’s comments a little bit, it seems… he wrote to point out the nVidia PR Director interview that MSXbox held this week. There were two quotes that stood out for me:MSXbox: What is the difference between these 2; Per-Pixel Shading and Bump-mapping?Derek: Bump-mapping is kind of a hack,…

John Carswell, from MSXbox.com, sends in an intriguing observation:If you have taken a look at the Malice screen shots you might be interested in knowing there was no bump mapping used. What appears to be high quality bump mapping is in reality per-pixel lighting. Thought you might be interested because of Matts “per-pixel everything” comment.Those…

fAt1, from MPZ Halo, writes to point out that Upwire.com has a story about a playable Xbox at E3:David Hufford, PR manager for the Xbox revealed that “E3 in May will be the real coming out party for Xbox,the machine will certainly be playable and you’ll be able to get your hands on lots of…

Thanks to Ph.D. who pointed out (on our forum) an editorial at Gamespy.com discussing the possible death of PC gaming at the hands of the Xbox, and consoles like it. Now, it has a few problems (as one of the arguments for the Xbox, it discusses the mod community, and how easy it will be…

Apparently, in a thread over at Battleground: Halo, there was some speculation that a commercial involving Halo characters has been showing on TV. Yesterday, Matt Soell stepped in and squashed it:No, there is no ad for Halo running on TV. Not even Californian TV. ;-)You can read the entire thread here. (Note: This doesn’t address…

Thanks to Chris Newhall, who sent in another Halo desktop pic for our Wallpapers page. Brings back the old days… Pax.

Thanks to David Bricker, who posted a snippet from the Bangkok (Thailand) Post over at the R.net forum. It does a decent job of summarizing the amazement with Halo, fear that Microsoft would crush Halo, and interest in the 3rd/1st person debate thathas manifested in the past year or so, all in one paragraph. While…

The Halo SETI Marines received a challenge last evening from the Overclockers UK team… and it looks like we’re not up to it. They’re crunching at a rate of almost 900 units/day, compared to the Marines’ 250 units/day. We’ll be dropping another slot, it seems, by week’s end. Got a few machines you can spare…

Thanks to Dispatcher, who sent in a rather… odd piece of artwork for our Miscellaneous Art page. Check it out!

The Halo SETI Marines have a new top cruncher! For the first time in 17 weeks, DarthFlounder has been displaced at the peak spot… congratulations, Lacrymosa! Details can be found on the 14 day stats page.

“We actually modeled the black off of a Glock 9mm.” In anIGN Xbox interview J. Allard, Xbox General Manager, describes how the Xbox casing is made from left over German munitions. No wait I think I read that wrong. 😉

Bob which button did you press? MSXbox has put together a Xbox controller design spec image to help clarify what button does what. It’s the red one…no blue… wait it’s…

Thanks to gen for the heads-up on the R.net forum… Gamecenter interviewed Ed Fries, Vice President of Games Publishing, on Saturday at CES. The quote of interest: Jason Ocampo: So what are the upcoming plans here? We’ve got Gamestock coming up, E3, GDCÂ… Ed Fries: Yeah, for me at Gamestock I’ll be unveiling our first-party…

Shadow writes to say that the new NAVCON design is complete. Stop by and take a look! Pax.

Okay, we’re not an Xbox site (thought we DO put the ‘X’ in ‘BO’…). This will be the last Xbox-related item today, we promise. However, some of you might be interested in the IRC chat that MSXBox hosted today concurrently with the CES keynote speech. There were at least 4 major players from Microsoft taking…

For those who want a good look at the Xbox, the official site now has a Flash Tour of the console. Check it out!

Dontcha just love it when the PR folks get a little ahead of the demonstrators? As I write this, I’m watching a live webcast from the Computer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas – the Xbox will be unveiled here this morning. However, on Microsoft’s web site, you can find this press release about the…