UrsusArctos is using his Rampancy.net blog to wonder about what might be in store for fans in Halo 3, as well as look at the use of artifacts like Arks and the Marathon logo in the Haloverse.

San Jose Mercury News columnist Dean Takahashi has written a second book about Microsoft’s foray into the console gaming business. Released as an eBook, The Xbox 360 Uncloaked: The Real Story Behind Microsoft’s Next-Generation Video Game Console also offers some interesting perspectives on the development of Bungie’s Halo franchise.

That the fate of the new console should be tied to Bungie’s flagship game is certainly no shock; since 2001 Bungie’s series of shooters have been system-sellers for the Xbox, and Halo 2 has had a stranglehold on the top spot in Microsoft’ Xbox Live online gaming service since it was released in late 2004.

Takahashi’s book claims that Bungie became caught in a struggle between the hardware and software sides of the Microsoft Games Division over how to best promote both the platform as a whole and individual games, and that eventually Hamilton Chu, Pete Parsons, as well as other Bungie staffers, and Ed Fries, who spearheaded the buyout of Bungie by Microsoft, were all casualties of it in one way or another.

The below text is a sort of “executive summary” of the book, including many the points where the stories of Bungie and Halo intersect with the business of Microsoft Games Studio and the division of Microsoft that makes the Xbox and the Xbox 360. Excerpts from Takahashi’s book are reproduced here with permission of the author. All quotations and paraphrases of statements by personnel currently or formerly of Microsoft or Bungie, whether identified by name or not, are taken from the book; no one contacted for this article wished to comment for the record at the time of its publication.

Click “read more” from the front page for the entire article.

Frankie has taken advantage of the gap between seasons 4 and 5 of Red vs Blue to interview Burnie, much like the Greeks exploited the Trojans’ weakness for equine statuary. Within, a plot to eliminate the show’s best character is revealed!

At the end of the last season, it looked like we might be getting a new cast member. Can you tell us if you have plans to introduce any other new cast members?

We’ll probably have two new cast members right away. After the first few episodes, it’s wide open. I really want to kill Simmons, though. I can’t stand that guy.

As mentioned previously season 4 of RvB is available in DVD in stores.

Although they aren’t, technically speaking, Halo story canon, the thematic and verbal similarities between the recent Halo 3 trailer and the Cortana Letters from 1999 have resparked interest in the latter; TraxusIV has embarked on an ongoing series of analytical articles that look at those themes and put the Letters into the greater context of the Bungieverse, past and present. The newest article looks at the second letter.