We were gonna let this pass, but we started getting mail about it – Ding’s comment yesterday, on the possibility of a simultaneous US-Europe Xbox release, was off the mark. As we noted last month, Microsoft has officially stated that there WON’T be a simultaneous release… Ding had just forgotten to take his medicine. It won’t happen again.

Clarification from Matt – at the Bungie Fanfest, he was quoted as saying

The next time you see Halo, it’ll be playable.

This immediately led to a rumor that a demo would be released, which Matt quickly shot down… but it wasn’t until today that someone pinned him down as to what he DID mean. According to the questions and answers in this thread, he meant

At the next E3/expo/whatever we will have a playable halo thingo on a stand, with a line so long you will need to bring food and sleeping bags, with a little 10 year old who seemingly wont get off in the next few years playing it.

(The words are Bongo’s, not Matt’s… but the sentiment fits.) Where’s my press pass for Gamestock?

The Halo SETI Marines continue to crunch along at their reduced pace, hampered by the higher processing demands of the latest SETI client. DarthFlounder, however, seems to be unaffected, continuing the 200+ units/week output that has garnered la Crunch Honneur for so many weeks. Iden, too, is shooting up the charts, leaping past 74 competitors to take the Frogblast Award with his 84 units for the week. Full details can be found on the 7 day stats page.

Seven Deadly Xbox Rumors. Thanks to Ash whopoints out on our forum that DailyRadar have a feature article on dispelling Xbox rumors. Here’s rumor #5

The Xbox is going to be launched simultaneously in the U.S. and Europe.

Smoke or Fire? Red hot flames
How’d it Start? Sony recently pushed back the release date for theEuropean launch of the PS2, to the chagrin of many huffy Brits. People don’t seem to like waiting for their goodies while othercountries fire up the new games. Word began to spread that the Xboxwill be launched on a single day throughout the U.S. and Europe (andperhaps Japan.) The developers we spoke to said thay hadn’t beengive a specific date (only that it will be available before Christmas2001), but they did point out that Microsoft has traditionally launchedtheir products simultaneously worldwide. So this one seems like a solidbet.

Hey good news for all non-US Halo fans. 🙂

Nice spotting by Forensic, who noticed a new job listing on Bungie’s Jobs page:

3D Environment Artist (Redmond)

Mold majestic mountains, carve cavernous canyons, form fantastic forests… and then coat them in the blood of your enemies! The natural environments you create with the Halo team will serve as the backdrop for sophiticated combat and an epic story, so apply today!

Nice work, if you can get it…

Well, the Giants got creamed, so that was good… but there was no Halo commercial after all during the Superbowl. Ah, well. So it goes.

Halo commercials aren’t COMPLETELY ruled out yet – Massa, from Halonetwork.de, writes:

I read over at gamestar.de that Paramount is going to show a trailer for their upcoming Tomb Raider movie. I was quite sure that they weren’t on the list and so I checked back at superbowl.adcritic.com – I was right, they aren’t.

So… if the list at AdCritic isn’t complete, then all hope isn’t lost yet for a Halo ad. No promises… but we’ll know for sure, one way or the other, later today. Thanks, Massa!

Thanks to Allenthar, who noticed that cortana.org is gone… or going… or something. Also, the text for the error page now matches the title of the front page .gif… which makes one wonder a little bit.

…all things change. We all knew it would come to this…

Come to what? Don’t ask us…

$erial-ki!!A sends in a desktop for our Wallpaper page… Dr. Dre and Cortana – who’da thunk it?

Thanks to Raino Priha, who sent in a brooding desktop for our Wallpapers page. Check it out!

Eep – sleep, the enemy of the site updater. Matt Soell sent in his weekly Halo update… but we were slacking. Here, then, is the latest and greatest – or make use of our new Halo Update Database! There’s some good stuff in there today – the jeep has a new gun, there are now sleeping alien models, the programmers play an R-rated version of ‘horse’ (what IS that word, anyway?)… go check it out!

Not DIRECTLY Halo-related, but relevant, nonetheless: seems Culture Shock, a website devoted to the works of Iain M. Banks, has moved – the new URL is http://www.schmeul.com/. Thanks, Chuckg (on the R.net forum).

Thanks to Spike, who sent in another desktop image for our Wallpaper page. Check it out!

–=MAC=– writes to say that Halo Command is online. Warning: DO NOT look at this site on a mac. (IE continually reloads the page, and NS and iCab spew out raw html.) On a PC, though, it looks okay – still needs fleshing out, but it’s getting there.

Battleground: Halo is hiring – they need a video person. If you’ve got the skills, and the interest, stop by their Jobs page. (Thanks, Mike Patton, for the heads-up.)

About 3 months ago, Matt Soell started a weekly update tradition – on Friday evenings, he’d post a concise (or rambling, depending on how much drinking was involved) catalogue of halo-related items to a random fansite. There was a lot of interesting info that entered the Halo knowledgebase this way… but it wasn’t always easy to find. Well, we’ve lightened the effort needed – all of the weekly updates so far (and future ones, to be added a few days after their release) have been compiled into a searchable database for you to peruse. Read them in their entirety, scan for particular categories, or simply search for a specific term – it’s your choice. Hope this helps fuel some good Halo speculation on our forum!

A couple of days ago, we noted that Wade Clisby had won the Wallpaper competition at Halo HQ. Today, we received permission to add some of his artwork to our Wallpaper collection… take a look!

Ben Evan Lewis writes to say that a Halo-themed comic has been posted at Shmuck the Kneerubber. Well, yeah, sorta…

No Halo Superbowl commercials? Lophan (who, for some bizarre reason, posted this on R.net instead of telling us), says that he’s seen a list of major advertisers for Sunday’s game… and Microsoft wasn’t among them. Ah, well… guess we’ll have to wait until Gamestock after all. (Or was that E3?)

Interesting info from Maddog=RN= on our forum – surprised Wirehead didn’t follow up on it. (He’s like that, though.) Maddog says he’s a tester for MS in Ireland… and hasn’t seen any Xbox material at all yet. This may mean nothing – if there aren’t any region-specific features of the Xbox, there’s no need to use Irish beta-testers over US ones – but you never know. How far behind the US release will the European Xbox release be, finally (Q1 2002, as planned, or later?), and will this affect the PC/Mac releases? (We said no a month ago… but there is a real possibility that the PC and Mac versions could be finished about the time of the European Xbox rollout… how will MS handle this?)