Why PC Gaming Will Not Die. The Adrenaline Vault has a featured article on the perceived threat of console gaming to PC gaming. Go put your fears to rest. Pax

More desktops for j00. darwin sends us a link to four desktops (wallpapers) he has done. They’re all 1024×768. Head on over and take a look.

Xbox news – thanks to Dave Bergendahl, who sent in a notice that xbox.ign.com covered the GDC 2001, during which Seamus Blackley confirmed that contrary to recent rumors, the Xbox is still on track for a Fall 2001 release, and to Kharn353, who sent word (via PlanetXbox) that the Xbox hard drive has been upgraded from 8 gigs to 10, and to schmiddtchen, who notes that Gamespot has an interview with Seamus Blackley.

Thanks to Tom Bertram, who sent in a new desktop for our Wallpaper page – nice combination of old and new Halo art.

Dink!… Dink!… The Halo SETI Marines have dropped two more spots, despite the addition of 7 new members this week – production increased only by a slight amount. DarthFlounder accounted for more than 14% of the total team units… scary, considering that there are almost 600 members on the team. See if you’re doing YOUR part on the 7 day stats page. (Stats were collected on time, yesterday morning at 7 am PST, but weren’t processed until now, due to technical difficulties.)

The rumor mill cometh… Justin Lambert sends in notice that ps2.ign.com is reporting a rumor that the Xbox will be delayed until mid-spring of 2002… could this be real, or just sour grapes from a site that covers a rival console?

As noted on the Marathon’s Story page Joe Staten of Bungie’s Cinematronics (Sin-O-MatiXXX) team dropped in on the Rampancy forums to give his two cents on the latest Unreal 2 tech demo movie. Yeah the one that looks like last year’s E3 Halo movie.

Thanks to Darwin Campa, who sent in a new desktop image for our Wallpaper page. Stay tuned – there might be new images made from the hi-res stuff found on the Xbox press site.

Evilbum sends us a black and white wallpaper with “subtle colors” and a “wussy circle”. His words not ours.

Eric drops us a note to inform us that only one job remains on Bungie’s front page, the other two must have been taken.

Our cup runneth over. Fain though I am to receive new information, I bemoan the displacement of older erudition. Okay, enough of that. While we hate to see gems like the second round of Matt’s Gamestock Q&A get bumped off the front page, we need to make room for this week’s Halo Update:

There’s a new member of the Sin-O-MatiXXX team: Adam Crockett. He’s currently modeling the exterior of the Pillar of Autumn. The team is also currently working on bringing Cortana to life.

Definitely a hearty welcome to Adam. Don’t forget that Matt suggested he do away with the weekly updates… if you want to see the Halo Update database continue to grow, let Matt know how you feel! (Don’t forget, you can read all the updates on one page… including the latest one.)

Took a few days, but Matt’s sent along the second round of answers to some of the questions you guys asked with regard to the Gamestock material. Some good news, some bad news, some just plain silly news. An interesting tidbit:

For Gamestock we put in an artificial framerate cap at 30 FPS because we didn’t want to demo with an FPS rate that varied widely from moment to moment. That artificial limit is actually well within the limits of the hardware, as you might imagine.

Go read the whole thing, and discuss!

B5RobMan@aol.com sends word that the May 2001 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly contains an article on the Xbox version of Halo. The screens all use the original marine… but apparently, there’s some additional coverage. When we know more, you’ll know more. 🙂

The official Xbox.com Halo site has added streamed versions of both the hi-res and lo-res versions of the newest Gamestock movies… the format is Windows Media, but I couldn’t get the links to work on any mac-based browser. They both work fine on a Win98 box with WMP 7, though. Links have been added to both the hi-res and lo-res mirror pages. Additionally, Massa writes that Halo Network has put up a 24 MB .asf version of the large movie – quality falls between the high and low versions (but the size is very attractive!).

SimplyDave has taken a close look at the new press pics, and has come up with some nice discussion fodder. Read. Discuss.

Poll updates: Halo still trails several games, including even Doom, in VoodooExtreme’s ‘what game would make the best movie’ poll… and it continues to be beaten by WWF and Pro Skater 2x in UGO’s drool factor poll. Heh… you guys have forgotten how to smash polls. 🙂

As a few thousand of you seem to have noticed, we came back online around 4 hours ago – hopefully, the telco guys found and solved ALL the problems. In the meantime, catch-up. Poking around on the Xbox press site turns up some other very interesting information… worth a look, until they turn off access.

Kudos to Char over on the Rampancy forum for spotting an archive of high quality Halo screenshots (TIFF format) over at xbox.com. The screenshots are the nine most recently released ones. Judging from the URL this is the Halo press material from the Games Developers Conference (GDC) 2001. The screenshots are huge so if you have a fast line grab them before they shut the shop!

Well, even though nobody can see this, we can still add it to the archived knowledgebase… Hamish Sinclair dug out and sent to us the jeep pictures we alluded to on Sunday… the ones that had been posted a bit over a year ago, but had disappeared from the net. One of these jeeps is the same as the one Jay Faircloth mentioned last week – the other is a similar design. While these may or may not have inspired Bungie, they show that a classic design will live in many forms. You can see them on this page.

fAt1, of MPZ Halo, writes to say that the latest copy of PC Gamer UK has a teaser for the next issue:

Exclusive, Halo: It’s back, we visit Bungie to get all the latest news and incredible screenshots of this stunning new tactical shooter!

That issue should be on the stands on April 19th, and possibly in the hands of subscribers a few days before that… let’s see who’s fastest with the details!