Blam!… Blam!… Blam!… Blam!… Blam! The Halo SETI Marines climb 5 notches to number 43 in the Battle of the Teams, mostly due to a server reset that changed the way earned units are allocated. No matter… Slashdot is now within easy reach. Unfortunately, Project Blue Book is climbing fast… can the Marines hold on? Check the 7 days stats for the full details on movements.

Seen at GameSpot UK: At this weekend’s ECTS (the European Computer Trade Show), Ed Fries announced some details of the Xbox launch strategy. There will be (at this point) 22 games ready for release with the box itself – seven from within Microsoft, and 15 from 3rd-party developers. It was this passage that caught my eye:

“Virtually everything we are developing will be exclusive to Xbox. We have a separate set of PC developers,” he said. “We’re not looking to port content back and forth between the Xbox and PC platforms.”

The one exception Fries allowed to this rule is Bungie’s much-hyped Halo, which will publish on Xbox, PC, and Macintosh platforms, although even this title will publish first on Xbox ahead of the PC release.

Shame on us for suggesting, yesterday, that Bungie doesn’t hold a place of honor in the Xbox pantheon!

Will nobody actually put their name to any information any more? Last week, xbox365.com posted a story in which “a good source” suggested the Xbox spec had been improved to include 128 MB RAM, instead of 64. A day later (we missed this until now), Spank! did some checking, and found another “source” (unnamed, of course) who said it’s all a bunch of hooey… “The spec hasn’t changed and it won’t change.” Makes you wonder about xbox365’s 40 gig HD rumor, too…

Noticed this on Halo Center: There’s a Danish Halo site up and running. Seems to have been reporting for the past 3 weeks or so, actually.) I’ve got very little idea what they’re saying… but if you speak Danish, go check out PlanetHalo.dk!

The Wallpaper page gets another one… J.C. Barbosa has submitted an interesting tropical scene for your viewing pleasure. Check it out!

Thanks to Alerus, who sends in another desktop for our Wallpaper page. It’s built on the original Blues News screenshot… so it’s sort of big. Worth a look, though!

Wow… Nathan comes back from the dead (or at least marriage). Nathan Bitner, who left his job as Producer of Halo last fall to get married and go back to school, has surfaced once again on our forum… the man sounds a little frazzled, but I hear Raleigh can do that to you. Good to have you back, Nathan!

We got more Fan Fiction… I think. Empty Weapon, it’s called.

Interesting. Bungie has always made a point of the independence they’re keeping in the Microsoft buyout deal… how Microsoft saw the Bungie name, its cachet, even, worth as much as the games it would produce. Yesterday, however, Microsoft published a press release about the talent pool currently developing for the Xbox. In it, they list all the “independent developers” currently on board with Xbox titles… Bungie isn’t on the list. Below it, though was this:

“In addition to allying with independent development studios, Microsoft also intends to continue to expand its internal pool of development talent across all game genres. The recent acquisition of Bungie Software Corp. increased Microsoft’s internal games group to more than 700 designers, programmers, testers and producers.”

Sure looks like (at least in Microsoft’s eyes) Bungie is just another 50 game engineers, not an independent entity. Hmm…

Well, the Xbox is proving to be one of the largest rumor generators since Mata Hari. xbox365 is reporting that the 8 gig drive is being swapped out in favor of a 40 gig drive, so that the Xbox can act as a recordable VCR, like TiVo or Replay TV. Even Slashdot has picked up on this story (although they bring a healthy dose of cynicism to the table). Thanks to Noctavis for the heads-up on this one.

Turbine Entertainment Software, “the technology-leading developer of massively multiplayer Internet-based persistent virtual worlds for PCs and videogame consoles,” put out a press release on August 17 announcing that they’d hired David Bowman, formerly of Bungie Software, “where he designed for their hit series Myth and Fantasy Siege, the forthcoming hit based on BungieÂ’s Halo engine.” For some strange reason, news of that press release is just making the rounds today… VoodooExtreme has some pretty wild speculation based on the release, but you can make your own guesses. Thanks to R.net and BHG for noticing this.

Another old name hangs up his hat: Stryker writes to say that Halo HQ is closing down, due to “time contraints and lack of Halo-related information.” (There’s a full resignation letter at Halo HQ, but unfortunately, that’s unreachable from here at the moment.) That’s two of the oldest Halo sites gone, in one day! Ouch.

Wow! It looks like there’s been a full server reset over at SETI… the Halo SETI Marines have been credited with over 10,000 units sometime in the past day. (These were units submitted by team members that may have been completed for other teams. Currently, the total for the Halo team is equal to the sum of the individual member totals.) This means that the Halo SETI Marines rocket up to 43rd place, just behind Team Slashdot. Full stats will be presented on Monday… but congrats to all the crunchers out there!

Alan Stott writes to say that due to problems finding a free server that allows server-side includes, Halo-Net is going down, but he made this offer:

The domain is up for grabs and is paid off until next August, and if someone has a server with Server Side Includes, they can have the new unseen site (pretty impressive) and also the freemail system.

If you’re interested, contact Alan at Alan@TheRhythmDome.co.uk.

Thanks to Ben Evans, who sent in a pair of desktops for our Wallpaper page. They’re composited screenshots… one with the old graphics, one with the new. Take your pick!

Thanks to John Boscia, who submitted a new story, The Book of Halo, to our Fan Fiction page. Check it out!

Thanks to Mark Levin, who found another Bench comic relating to Halo. (Xian noticed one way back in early March, on our forum.) This one’s pretty old, too… it went up in early February. However, I couldn’t find any record of it either in our forum archives, or in the r.net forum archives, or on our news page. Old news can be good news. 😉

Woohoo! Bungie’s updated the Letters to the Webmaster section! Dog intestines, Tauntauns, and Joan Crawford, oh, my. (Halo’s even mentioned a couple of times, which makes this post (just barely) on topic.) Go read ’em! Thanks to Tursas for the heads-up on this one.

Psyrixx writes to tell us that the Psyjnir Complex will be relaunched on September 10th, in all its glory. Mark your calendars!

Halo news is at an all-time low right now… but that didn’t stop Halo Center from bringing on two new staffers, and welcoming back an old one. With a crowd like that, they should be able to make up news, when there isn’t any. 😉 Welcome (or welcome back), guys!