Matt Soell, online from Seattle and posting up a storm, confirms on our forum that Joe Staten and Marty O’Donnell will be heading up a new team devoted to making cool cutscenes and trailers. It was only a matter of time… the Halo engine looks fantastic for making gorgeous cutscenes in a fraction of the time that it would take with standard CG techniques. (Kudos to R.net, who picked up on this yesterday.)

Joseph Haake writes to tell us that several Bungie fans were inadvertently caught on camera in one of the bungie.org MacWorld NY 2000 images. You can see the annotated image here. Too bad we didn’t know… we’d have stopped by to say hello!

GameCenter put up an article with some more details about the Xbox yesterday. They’re ramping up development right now:

“We shipped our first XDK, which is the software development kit for developers,” explained Bach. “By the end of the summer we will have shipped over a thousand of those to well over 200 developers that will be working on the project in various ways. That’s a big milestone for us, because that’s the tool that people are going to use to start creating these games. The first XDK is basically a PC development system, very much like what most people do when they start. And then over time that XDK will migrate into a full console system, which will be the full Xbox, as we complete all the components.”

The HBO Spin: with development actually occurring on a PC (at least at first), it’s possible that the gap between the Xbox version and the PC version might be less than people thought. Thanks to TomeOne for the heads-up.

PunkRocker points out on our forum that he’s made a new flash movie transitioning between the new and the old marine. Worth a look… I had trouble seeing it with Netscape Communicator for mac… so if you do, too, try IE, or a PC.

As seen on the Marathon’s Story page Robert McLees (Halo artist) and Lorraine Reyes (Bungie artist) have got engaged. Congratulations to Rob and Lorraine from all staff here at HBO. Woot!

Whoa! The Halo SETI Marinesgain six new recruits over the last 24 hours bringing the total team count up to 472 marines. Looks like we’re heading for thatbig 5 double aught… soom(TM). Hopefully we should start to see some more climbing in the SETI team ranks. Put your computer’s idle time to good use join the Halo SETI Marinesand help in the search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Remember if you haven’t already updated to Version 2 of the SETI@home client please do so since units from older clients might soon be refused.

Rock the poll! Thanks to Tim Hansen for pointing us to a weekly poll at Gibchunks which asks “What game are you most looking forward to?” Metal Gear Solid 2 and Halo are presently tied for first place with 30% of votes. Oni has 7%. Go tell them Halo and Oni are coming.

What do you want to see in our FAQ? Mark “Mr FAQ” Levin wants your help in updating our Halo FAQ. He’s started a thread in our forums for your thoughts and ideas. Help Mark to help Halo fans. All additions will be fully credited.

Stuck in a rut? The Halo SETI Marinesare STILL some 500 units behind the TidBITS team and 1000 units ahead of team Seti Italia in the Battle of the Teams. Team membership now stands at 466 marines that three up since the last time we reported but we ain’t going anywhere soon. Put your computer’s idle time to good use join the Halo SETI Marinesand help in the search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Remember if you haven’t already updated to Version 2 of the SETI@home client please do so since units from older clients might soon be refused.

InsideXbox Graphics. Want to know more about the Xbox specs? Dr. Dobb’s Journal has a detailed report by Microsoft programmer Michael Abrash. Here’s a quote:

The best thing about Xbox is that it won’t change. Ever. Judging by other consoles, Xbox should have a four or five year run, and wonderful as the profusion of constantly evolving PC technology is, I love the idea of being able to spend years working with a high-powered, fixed platform — figuring out how to apply all that programmability, understanding the performance quirks, getting things right.

The HBO Spin: Four to five years is a long time in gaming history. Five years ago 3D gaming engines were only coming on stream. Will the Xbox’s four or five year run restrict gaming development?

After a bit over two months of inactivity, the Theories page comes alive with two new entries, both of which should spur a bit of mail or comments on our forum… Mikkel Eriksen expounds on the seasons of Halo, and Jeff Smith discusses the atmosphere problem. Read ’em over… then tell us what you think!

PrisonGuy writes:

Enclosed is a piece of fiction I made. (It isn’t finished, and never will be. I have lost heart in a former cool company, and never will touch a product from the great satan.) Enjoy.

You can find it on our Fan Fiction Page. (It’s called “The Loss.”) Thanks, PG!

Thanks to Robert Chrzanowski, who sent in a new Desktop image for our Wallpaper page. It came in in TIFF format, but if that image is too big for you, you can snag a high-quality JPEG. Thanks, Robert!

Microsoft to Spend $500 Million on Xbox Marketing. According to a news report on PlanetXbox Microsoft will spend half a billion dollars in marketing their Xbox console system in an effort to out perform Sony, Nintendo, and Sega in sales. According to Robbie Bach, senior vice president of Microsoft’s games division, this will be Microsoft’s biggest launch yet. The Xbox hardware design is now complete and they are now building the form factors. Microsoft now has about 30 games, including Halo, which will either launch with Xbox or be released shortly afterwards.

The HBO Spin: With this sort of marketing muscle it’s not surprising that so many small gaming companies have joined the Xbox bandwagon looking for a free ride.

Don’t forget to check out our newly updated Halo movies page. There you’ll find Bungie’s parody of the Budweiser “Whazzup” commercial. This is the high quality version (18.5 MB). Thanks to ***cough*** ***cough*** for making this available to us. We had to edit it slightly for ***cough*** ***cough*** reasons.

The Halo SETI Marinesare still some 500 units behind the TidBITS team and 1000 units ahead of team Seti Italia in the Battle of the Teams. Team membership stands at 463 marines but only a third are actively crunching which explains our slow progress. Put your computer’s idle time to good use join the Halo SETI Marinesand help in the search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Remember if you haven’t already updated to Version 2 of the SETI@home client please do so since units from older clients might soon be refused.

Freewill’s Bungie Sightings is temporarily down. The Fanfest forum is still up though. Expect an update… soon(tm). Pax.

Battleground: Halo returns with a redesigned look. White and blue is in and they’ve started a new fanfiction series titled “Retaliation”by Patrick “Defcon” Palmer. Pax.

More pics from MacWorld… this time from the FanFest. Swing by and take a look!

Mojo announces that Halam is dead, long live Bungie Jumping. Bungie Jumping is a new site, devoted entirely to Bungie-related comics. We say: add this to your roster of daily-checked sites! Pax.