According to a Hard|Forum post the full E3 Halo movie has been released. It’s claimed to be 150MBs and 10mins long. HBO staff haven’t been able to verify this yet though.

Matt Soell dropped into our forum to say that he seriously doubts the Halo-Net Store actually has permission to market their products. He’s looking into it… but if you were thinking about buying a sticker today, you might want to hold off a few hours, or until the issue is clarified.

Kudos to Bagman, who found a small article about the XBox controller, posted two weeks before the Bungie/MS deal went public. Seems it’s been known for quite some time that a keyboard will not be a standard feature on the XBox… makes you wonder how Bungie thinks the fan community is going to stay together. (Makes me wonder, too.)

ARMAGEDDON informs us on our forumsthat he has made the Halo scans from PC Gamer (Aug 2000) available on the web at http://armageddon.gamehappy.com/halo/. These scans were originally from the Rampancy.net Hotline server, scanned and upped by Isolder. Thanks ARMAGEDDON and thanks Rampancy.net.

I’m totally unclear on the concept… but it seems a Halo paraphernalia shop has sprung up. The Halo-Net Shop offers… well, nothing at the moment. But you can read about the shirts, stickers, and info packets (?) it WILL have for sale at some point. Seriously bare-bones site, so even if you (as I) don’t get it, you’ll be in and out in a matter of minutes. Check it out!

SETI techs update their team rankings page and the Halo SETI Marines find themselves still holding on to position #46 in the Battle of the Teams.Banzif hits 7777 units and knocks Jjaro tech off the #1 spot. Team membership rises to an all time high of 432 recruits. We need more marines though to replace the combined crunchin’ power of Banzif and Jjaro tech. Join up today for a better future in space.

IGN Xbox have posted an interview with J. Allard, General Manager of Xbox. Allard’s insights into the Xbox are quite revealing. Here’s a piece that caught our attention:

IGN Xbox: So first critics were saying that Microsoft was going to create a mini PC in the living room, and then it switched to a console that crashes. What’s your definition of what makes a console?

JA: You turn it on, and it blows your mind. We’re not confused. It doesn’t boot, there is no install, there are no patches, it’s not an opportunity to port PC games, there’s not a keyboard jack, there’s not a mouse jack. You put it in the living room, you put it in the bedroom, you put it on the biggest TV you’ve in the house and the biggest sound system you’ve got, and you plug in not one, not two but four controllers. You invite your buddies over, and you have the best time you’ve ever had in any form of digital entertainment ever. And you’ll have experiences that you’ll never forget. That’s our focus.

No keyboard, no mouse… thus no means to chat while online.

Not strictly Halo-related… except that its engine is Halo’s. GameSpot posted a tidbit about the game being worked on by The Team Formerly Known As Myth2… “The Phoenix Project.” Interesting little read. Thanks to NexZ, who mentioned it on our forum. Pax.

There’s another IRC channel devoted to Halo… #halo on Irc.EnterTheGame.Com. This is probably the same channel mentioned a couple of days ago in bungie.net’s news… anyone know what network this is? In any case, if you’re looking for a place to hang out and talk Halo, try this one. Pax.

A bunch of scans from the August 2000 PC Gamer have been uploaded to the Rampancy.net Hotline server. (Downloads -> August 2000 PC Gamer) Quality is questionable (as is legality), but the content is very interesting, to say the least.

Seen over at Halo Center: a new French site, Halo Mystic, has come online. The site of the Mystic Angels… take a look!

Daily Radar has an interesting article with Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games, about the future of gaming as he sees it. Apparently, Epic has no plans to move to a console paradigm anytime soon. A pair of intriguing quotes:

We have no problem with people shifting their focus away from the PC or watering their PC product down to the lowest common denominator — it just leaves more opportunity for us!

I can’t see any logical reason why the PC platform is going to be any less vibrant than it is today. I don’t see anything stepping up to the plate to replace the PC I own now or the next one I’m going to buy, or the next one after or the next one after that, or even the next one after that. I think that covers me being a devoted PC user for the next four or five years. So as long as I have a PC that can play games, I’m going to be playing games on my PC. I want a keyboard, I want a mouse, I even want a video camera.

The rest of the article is definitely worth a read. Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi for the heads-up.

King of War sends word that GCA (German Cosmonautio Army), a new German Halo clan, is now online. Check ’em out!

Bungie store to close? As noted first on the Marathon’s Story page the Bungie Store is to stop taking orders as of this Friday. Jim Ruiz posted a farewell letter to Bungie Store customers and stated he was moving on. The Microsoft assimilation begins in earnest. Doug, Jim… who next? And what about my Bungie Points?

noddy99 sends us this news item:

There is a poll at www.insidemacgames.com asking the question, “What do you think of Microsoft buying out Bungie?” and the overwhelming majority of respondents show their dislike for the purchase.

Thanks noddy99. Since this is a Mac site no big surprises on the outcome.

Jeremy Roush comments upon the Halo thumbs we posted yesterday:

Just so ya know… neither thumb is from the trailer shown at E3, as the Green Marine is never among the other troops in such a fashion. He snipes the aliens in the opening shots, and then reappears to save the lone surviving Bob in the final few shots. He never appears in any shot with the jeep.

Thanks Jeremy.

Matt expands on his comments of last night in this forum post. Once again, it’s not a promise to do ANYTHING, but a common sense argument that if the X-box fails, PC/Mac development is always there as a fallback. And while the inference can be made that “since it IS a fallback position, it won’t be implemented unless it’s needed,” this would be just an inference… nothing of the kind has been said. Bungie’s official position is still “we haven’t made a decision yet.”

Marathon’s Story scoops with a concept art pic of new Halo aliens. The pic comes from PCZone Benelux (Dutch gaming mag). D’n’A mentioned this mag on our forums last Thursday and we’re working on bringing you the official pics courtesy of PCZone themselves. The mag also features a Halo developer’s diary. Lots of meat for Halo starved fans. Head on over to the Story page for a look-see at those fun loving aliens.

That Wirehead has sharp eyes. He noticed that the thumbnail included in last week’s PC Gamer buyout analysis was close, but not the same as, the thumbnail included in last month’s Newsweek article. Seems both groups had access to the base material (probably the E3 trailer). Here’s the two shots, for you to compare on your own:

Newsweek, May 29	PC Gamer, June 19

Soon, we hope to see the entire trailer!

John Scott of Raven Software commenting on John Carmack’s X-box comments atSlashdot said:

Cross platform compatibility is exactly what MS do not want. They wantexclusivity to their console, or at the very least exclusivity to their OSes. They will make money from XBox game sales, and do not make any from PC game sales. MS could kill OpenGL support on the XBox for exactly this reason.

While this is a worst case scenario the fact that it IS a possible scenario is scary.