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.

It’s not gonna happen… but it’s nice to know it COULD. In response to a question on our forum about what Microsoft would do if Bungie decided that Halo wouldn’t work as an XBox title, Matt Soell said this:

This question actually came up when we were discussing the deal. According to Alex, we’d make no friends at MS if we avoided XBox development completely, but we’d have the freedom to do it.

Check the full context here.

Seen at Blue’s News: Incite, the magazine that has brought us several of the juiciest Halo bits over the past few months, is closing its doors. Who’s next?

Spotted at Halo Vault: John Carmack commented on the X-box over at Slashdot. Here’s his first post, and his second. One interesting excerpt, which might explain how Microsoft hopes to compete against PC hardware one year out:

The X-Box should be able to keep up for a while, because you can usually expect to get about twice the performance out of a fixed platform as you would when shooting for the broad PC space, just because you can code much more specifically.

Lots more there… interesting thread!

Total Halo, once a source of unique Halo news and art, has gone offline. We’ll miss you, guys. In totally unrelated news, a new site, coincidentally namedTotal Halo, has come online… not much there yet, but growing.

HazardOpC has sent in a new desktop for our Wallpaper page. Good to know the artwork continues unabated!

Double Blam! The Halo SETI Marines climb to position #46 in the Battle of the Teams. SETI techs final update the team rankings page. Team membership also rises to 429 recruits. Keep the pressure on marines! Help in the search for the Covenant!

Kudos to Yrro, at Halo Center, who noticed that PC Gamer had put up an article on the MS/Bungie issue. What is most interesting to me about this is the tone of betrayal expressed by Rob Smith, Editor-in-Chief of PC Gamer:

That’s right. The subject of an in-depth three page preview in the August issue of PC Gamer, the game that’s on the July cover of our sister publication in the UK, and the game that’s on the cover of another magazine in the US may come to the PC. Would it be cynical to suggest that the push for this slew of coverage for a game still at least a year from release all raised Bungie’s stock with the Microsoft deal in the making? That’s another story…

Sounds like they feel burned…

More than 22,000 have now signed the Halo petitionto urge the Bungie Halo team to continue and complete development of the PC and Mac versions of Halo. Please aid the cause.

The Halo SETI Marines keep crunchin’ away but the SETI team rankingshaven’t been updated since last Tuesday. What’s up with that? Team membership stands at 426 recruits and Banzif is heading for that magic 7777 unit number. Help in the search for the Covenant!

Mentioned on R.net yesterday, but we slipped until Douglas Long tweaked us… Viceland has put up their take on the MS/Bungie deal. Hmm. Warning: if you work at a puritanical company, don’t visit this site from there.

Man, that Crux… first he’s off by an order of magnitude on the petition (understandable, he’s using a 9″ screen, and has it set to 1600×1200), now he gets the Shirt Story wrong. Seems the Story page t-shirts aren’t sold out… they aren’t sold, period. Jon Chang isn’t allowed to sell them by mail, so you HAVE to come to New York and buy one at the fanfest. Hope this straightens things out.