So now that this specious attempt to nab page hits has worked, there can be little further damage that I can do except to examine the author's premise and see if it holds any merit. For the most part, it doesn't.

When you have to start off your article by saying "this isn't Halo bashing" it's not a good sign. Not because Halo doesn't deserve thoughtful criticism. It does. It is not a perfect edifice placed on Earth by some deity for the entertainment of humanity.

Not Bashing Halo-- Really I'm Not

Rather than bashing Halo, the author states he wants to "look at how gamers have allowed it to control their online, console gaming experience." Nice that he includes the word "allowed" there, indicating that whatever popularity Halo has is given to it by fans and not taken by force. As the article proceeds your freewill slowly ebbs away.

He notes that Halo 2 dominated XBL until Gears of War was released, but that "[...] Gears didn't top the charts for too long, as Halo 3 came out and took dominance of the online competition ring."

I'm not sure whose fault that is supposed to be. Epic's for not making a game that became as popular as Halo 2? Or the fault of players, for ultimately preferring Halo 2 (or Halo 3) to Gears?

Now come the unfounded assumptions.

"But the problem is that - like most gamers in the gaming community - there's always a penchant for wanting to play other games online, which seem to receive little or no fanfare."

The author has now directly contradicted himself, and we haven't gotten out of the second paragraph yet. We have Gears coming out and briefly unseating the Halo franchise-- yet people always want to play other games, games that get no fanfare. Apparently the author believes that Halo players want to play something else, would prefer to play something else, but just don't know what it is. Nevermind that at least there's Gears. If the author wanted to make a point that XBL is dominated by shooters and that the shooters are dominated by the Halo franchise, then I'm right with him. He seems to be trying to say that people really would rather play something other than Halo, but they are being prevented by some mystical force. What could this be?

"Yes, Call of Duty 4 and Gears of War are also always on the list too, but you're never going to find an empty multiplayer channel of Halo."

COD4 has been on top of the 360 title list as often as not since its release, so dismissing it out of hand seems downright rude. The phrase "empty multiplayer channel" makes me wonder if the author even plays Halo online on a console. In fact that, and the many references elsewhere in the article, makes me think he's primarily a PC gamer that owns an Xbox and knows you can play Halo on it, but that's about it.

In fact, his use of the word channel, rather than the terms Bungie uses like hopper and playlist, tells me he's unfamiliar with all the effort Bungie has put into addressing exactly the problem he is citing, although on a different scale. More on that in a bit.

"Finding multiplayer competition for titles like Blacksite: Area 51, 007: From Russia With Love, The Outfit, or Fatal Inertia (just to name a few), is almost tougher to do than finding a Republican who doesn't support the NRA. However, there's never a shortage of players hounding Halo 2 and Halo 3, even if they aren't actually playing."

I'm sure the lack of players for those games is somehow related to Microsoft and its evil hype machine and has nothing whatsoever to do with those other games. After all, it must be so. People want to play other games! These games ARE other games! Something nefarious must be preventing people from playing these other games, and the most obvious target is the game they are playing. Even though the author asserts that they are playing even when they aren't playing. I have no idea what he means by that.

Making People Play Nice

The author goes on to assert that Halo 2 and Halo 3 dominates the tunneling services that cater to those who can't get XBL, don't want XBL, or have been kicked off XBL: Xlink Kai, XBConnect, and Leaf. I'm not even sure what influence Microsoft or Bungie are supposed to influence over these services that they can't control and that they would probably prefer didn't exist, as they take customers away from XBL.

"The problem isn’t that a lot of people are playing Halo 2 and Halo 3, the problem is that everyone who goes on any service that offers these games are playing them, and pretty much little of anything else. You can bet that nearly everything else that isn’t Halo 2, Halo 3, Call of Duty or Gears of War is going to see sparse activity, if none at all."

Here is the real problem, the one that (within the context of Halo, anyway) Bungie has labored endlessly to address, the one that is inherent to a game that is dependent on online multiplayer as opposed to one that is built primarily or solely on a solo experience. The problem is that the value of a multiplayer game increases in a nonlinear fashion with the number of players who play it. There is no utility in a multiplayer game you cannot play. Splitting Halo 3's playerbase equally amongst a dozen or so other deserving and fun multiplayer titles would greatly reduce the utility of the Halo title to its owners, as they would find the game that always had a player population now has a scarcity, and the population split amongst the other games would not give any of them a critical mass large enough to significantly improve their status.

People are only willing to pay a fee for a service like XBL when it enables what they want to do when they want to do it. When a block of time opens up in their busy lives for a chance to play a game, they want to sit down and play it, not wait for the system to find people to play with. The fewer people are interested in a particular game, the more time you need to wait. People play Halo because other people play Halo-- not because of hype and not because Bungie and MS are somehow ramming it down anyone's throats, and not because people aren't aware of the existence of other games.

What this comes down to is that some gamers, like the author, would like to play other games sometimes, but not enough people want to play those games when he wants to play them to make it convenient.

This is the problem that Bungie's playlist hoppers solve. By taking away from the player the complete freedom of choice in matchmaking to determine the map, the game type, and weapon spawns, Halo attempts to please the largest number of players for the largest amount of time while at the same time promoting variety.

"It sometimes makes you question what happened to everyone who bought other online-supported games from the retail shelves? I’m assuming these are the same people who keep their games in the original packaging, never to open or play them."

Here are a few items of note for the author: Most game players do not play online. Most. Until MS created the Silver accounts, there were more Xboxes not on Live than on Live. Even now MS does not release figures of how many Gold and Silver accounts they have, but even so, the number of 360s on Live is less than the number of consoles sold.

So not everybody who owns a console is online, and not every online console owner plays online. While the number of simultaneous players on Halo 3 is indeed staggering it is still relatively small compared to the actual number of copies of Halo sold and the entire Xbox 360 installed base. Those people aren't keeping their games in the original packaging. They are playing campaign, which is the real reason people buy games. Multiplayer is an extra. Multiplayer gets all the hype because the people who play online also write online and read online and the squeakiest wheels get all the grease.

However, let's not split hairs here. Bioshock was a pretty darn good game that had good sales and fantastic reviews, yet has no multiplayer features whatsoever. Shadowrun was a decent game with ho-hum reviews and so-so sales, and has multiplayer only, no campaign whatsoever. In other words, if you have multiplayer but nothing else, you're very likely to fail. However, if you do things well, you can completely ignore multiplayer and still succeed.

Mark that. Multiplayer is important. Multiplayer is a differentiator. Multiplayer is where the leading edge of console gaming is, and it is undeniably the future. It is, however, at this very moment, not the main attraction. Of the three current generation consoles the clear leader is the weakest in terms of online functionality.

"The media hype surrounding Halo keeps gamers playing Halo, but it doesn’t really help expand online console gaming beyond that. Server hosts should start changing things up a bit; offering more incentives to lesser known, or lesser played games."

This paragraph again makes me wonder if the author has any idea what Xbox Live is or how it works. Xbox Live has no server hosts. Microsoft administrates the backend that does authentication and billing and handles your Friends list so you can see what other people are playing. They have absolutely no control whatsoever on what people choose to play, beyond promoting games in Marketplace, which they do-- plenty of games that aren't Halo or Halo-related, including a bunch of downloadable Xbox Originals, Xbox Live Arcade games, and Xbox 360 game dmeos.

Who are these "server hosts" who are supposed to "change things up a bit" on Xbox Live?

That's right-- they are you and me, the ordinary guys who pay to use XBL and want to sit down and have fun when we have time to play.

In fact, Micrsoft does do a good job of trying to mix things up and spread the wealth, hosting weekly events that promote other games.

Here's a solution for you, and one that I am sure plenty of people will hate just as much as some people hate Bungie's hoppers for not allowing them to use the matchmaking engine to generate them an endless stream of their favorite gametype (team slayer) on their favorite map (High Ground or other). Let's apply Bungie's hopper system to the whole of XBL. Let's make the system so you can party up in the dashboard and then enter a playlist that chooses not from a selection of Halo maps and gametypes, but from the library of installed games available on all the consoles of the party members. That'd mix things up a bit.

Perhaps only a bit, though. Because I can guarantee you that they'd still be playing a lot of Halo, and that's nobody's fault. If you want to play something else, play something else. If you don't have others to play with, tell your friends to buy the games you want to play and then play them. If they won't, then build your friends list from people who want to play the game you want to play. Your XBL friends list does not have to be a list of all the guys from work or your buds at uni. It's supposed to be to help you find people to play games with. If you don't want to play Halo and your entire friends list does, then make room on your friends list, look at the Xbox.com forums, and try to find people who want to play those games, and put them on your friends list.

For developers: maybe more people would play your games if the online experience was as rich and smooth as Halo's. Don't give everyone total control. Don't slap a PC style server browser on your game and expect big numbers from XBL multiplayer (Gears, I'm looking at you).

Otherwise, the money publishers complain about losing when their title ends up in the used-game bargain-bin, is partially to blame on no one having a reason to play it anymore, especially if everyone is playing the latest Halo game.

There are no "server hosts" here to blame, as the author does. Server hosts are ordinary players like you and me. If the game ends up in the bargain bin and nobody plays it, it is the fault of the publisher and the developer and no one else.

Halo isn't killing console multiplayer. It is keeping it on life support. The sooner that developers and network operators look at its model and embrace it, the sooner multiplayer becomes the main event and not just a checklist item.

Luke Smith's post on Bungie.net calls this a "CG-teaser" and the front page refers to it as being for "one of our current projects".

My general impression is that this teaser is for a campaign expansion to Halo 3 that takes place sometime between the departure of Regret's ship from the Mombasa area and the Master Chief's return to Earth at the start of Halo 3. As such the main character or characters may be other human forces, perhaps marines or ODSTs, and the plot may focus on improvising city guerilla warfare against the Covenant forces in the city.

The most noticeable point of this trailer is that unlike nearly every Bungie game trailer produced to date, it is completely without music.

Without further ado, let's peruse the details the trailer offers.

This gallery shows each of the points illustrated here in order from 00:07 of the trailer through 1:02. Click each thumbnail for a full-size image and accompanying commentary.

At 00:07 we see a rooftop view of the city. Several buildings have visible corporate logos. In the near right we have Traxus, also seen many places in Halo 3 and a reference to a rampant Martian AI in Bungie's Marathon series. Up and left form that we see AMG, and in the far left a stylized "e" logo. The sky is criss-crossed with contrails indicating the recent passage of air vehicles, and in the middle right we can see a large Covenant ship, perhaps a carrier or a cruiser, slowly passing by an intact space elevator.

If this is indeed the same area seen in Halo 2, then the fact that the elevator is intact means it is certainly before its destruction, which is covered by the novel Ghosts of Onyx which occurs roughly between Halo 2 and Halo 3. If this is indeed Earth and the object seen at 00:07 is a Covenant ship, then it can be no earlier than Regret's arrival there during Halo 2 as this is the first known encounter between the Covenant and humanity on Earth.

NOTE: Thanks to those who provided the correction that the elevator from Ghosts is in Cuba, not Africa, so while the elevator in Africa is apparently somehow destroyed between Halo 2 and Halo 3, presumably by the wake of Regret's departure, the events of Ghosts are not involved.

At 00:09 we see, up close, one of many objects streaking (presumably) Earthward from high in the atmosphere. While there are few distinguishing characteristics visible even in the closeup, the logical conclusion is that they are drop pods, either human or Covenant. Later details may strongly indicate they are human, rather than Covenant.

At 00:10 we get a repeat of the previous rooftop camera view, slightly zoomed in; the Traxus logo that was in the lower right is now out of frame. A HUD has now been superimposed on the screen, and the Superintendent's avatar appears in the upper right, open-eyed and awake. In the lower right is the text "Tanaga.0086". Tanaga is an area in present-day Mali, in Western Africa, far from Mombasa and Zanzibar; however it is possible that in this context it is the name of a neighborhood in Mombasa. The number may indicate a location, or perhaps the number of the camera. The video presents several such camera views with the Superintendent superimposed; the implication is that these are security cameras around the city that are under his control, or that he at least has access to.

In the center of the screen we see the text "POST SCAN CAMERA ACTIVE" and "SCAN>> POP:0" and "[EVAC.COMPLETE]". This would seem to indicate that the current conditions-- one or more Covenant ships in the area, was anticipated and the city completely evacuated. This would largely explain the situation on the ground that the Master Chief and his compatriots experience in the Earth levels of Halo 2; a city completely empty, partially damaged, but still mostly intact.

As the scene ends, a clock pops up under the "TANAGA" line, indicating 16:11. This clock remains in the security camera shots, advancing from 16:11 forwards, until an event that apparently resets it to zero later in the video. One of the other messages shown under the clock is "SIERRA 117 LOC UNK" which would indicate that the Superintendent does not know the current location of the Master Chief. This may be another clue that this scenario does not involve him, and if the timeframe of these events are from Regret's departure onwards, then the Chief is not on Earth at this time.

At 00:12 we get a different camera view, this one labeled "LUMBUMBA.0624". The name is quite likely a reference to Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo following its independence from Belgium. In the upper left, a sign reads "evacuate" above the text "City of New Mombasa". The sky overhead is darker than the previous frame, which may be consistent with this view being from Mombasa in Kenya, on Africa's east coast, and the previous one being from Mali, far to the west.

The view is of a darkened and empty street, with several abandoned cars visible; the nearest one still has its forward-swinging door open. The architecture of the buildings, as well as the palm trees, make this scene very reminiscent of the area just outside the Hotel Zanzibar in Halo 2. At the end of the street a fire is burning.

At 00:14 we get a different camera, this one labeled "MBARAKI.2552", with the clock still ticking up from 16:11. Mbaraki is a port in Kenya. "2552" is the year in which the events of the Halo series thus far take place, but the other numbers that have followed locations have not looked like years. If this is indeed a year, then perhaps the previous reference, "06.24" is a month and day, indicating June 24th, but then the first reference, 0086, would be out of place.

The center of this view shows a view of the space elevator, stretching upwards between two towers. At this point the Superintendent is still visible in the upper right, still wide-eyed and alert.

At 00:15 the text "THRESHOLD TRIGGER" appears in frame, near center, and this triggers a change in the Superintendent's appearance, from eyes fully open to eyes that appear half-open. Some fans have considered this to be a "sleepy" look but the trailer may show this to be more consistent with wariness or suspicion.

The camera moves upwards and at 00:18 we get a look at some commotion in the sky; a large group of what looks like incoming drop pods, all moving from right to left from the center of the frame, and a smaller group, moving directly downwards into the frame and gradually moving slightly from left to right. The camera takes a few steps to zoom in on this smaller group.

At the same time the camera began moving, the "THRESHOLD TRIGGER" text was replaced first by "AUTH INQ" indicating "authentication inquiry" or perhaps "authority inquiry" and then "AUTH DENIED" indicationg that the request was turned down. Further left, the text "ACTIVATING SUBROUTINE VERGIL" appears, along with "WARNING! DATA LEAK ON LEVEL 9!" Vergil is an alternate spelling for the name of classical Roman poet Virgil. Virgil is best known for his epic poem Aeneid, about the Trojan warrior Aeneas who flees the destroyed city and ends up being ancestor to the Romans. New Mombasa's fate here would seem to parallel Troy's.

At 00:21 the camera is fully zoomed in on the sixteen pods in the smaller group. Meanwhile, a loud rumbling and a bright blue-white light begins to emanate from behind the tower building on the left. It appears to engulf the larger group of pods, while the smaller group continues on its way. The explosion also appears to engulf the Mbaraki camera, as the view then switches to another one further away.

At 00:22 we are returned to a viewpoint similar to the first one, except now where the name of the camera was displayed is only "ERR" and the center of the screen shows "EMP TRIP DETECT". At 00:23 the camera text reads "SIDIRIYAI.0042".

It is quickly replaced with "ERR" again and the clock resets to zero as the view flickers in the face of the onrushing explosion.

Forty-two, of course, is not only the ultimate answer but also the name of the marketing firm that created the I Love Bees alternative reality game promotion for Halo 2.

From behind the two large towers we can see a blue-white sphere of light that appears to emit from some location near the surface, rather than from the atmosphere. That, combined with the fact that the only large Covenant ship seen in the trailer was moving from right to left, from behind the space elevator, roughly towards this area, may indicate that we are witnessing the events that closed the Halo 2 level Metropolis over again-- the Prophet of Regret's ship performing a slipspace jump from within New Mombasa, headed towards Delta Halo.

The Superintendent remains mostly in his eyes-half-closed state, but has now begun to flicker, and at times as many as three versions of him are displayed, in varying states.

By 00:23 the view from that camera is also interrupted, and we switch to another view of incoming pods. In these shots, they clearly seem to be trailing some kind of parachute or airbrake, similar to those seen at the start of the level Delta Halo in Halo 2, again indicating that the pods are of human, rather than Covenant origin. The Covenant drop pods, first seen in the Earth City trailer for Halo 2 and later in the Outskirts and Uprising levels of that game, do not appear to have any external braking mechanism such as this. The HUD displays "SAVE SYS STATE" over these images; the clock still reads zero and the camera name is still just "ERR".

By 00:24 we can see that the small group of pods is now just passing by the tops of the skyscrapers in the previous views. Also at 00:24 we see a camera view centered on the building with the TRAXUS logo; the blue-white ball of fire is present in the upper left. As it spreads from left to right across the screen, several drop pods also travel left to right across the screen, ahead of the blast, apparently unscathed. By 00:25 the ball of light has engulfed the entire screen.

From 00:25 to 00:31 we get almost a full six seconds of trademarked Staten-O'Donnell black screen and silence.

At 00:31 we begin to see what looks like a Superintendent status display. In the upper left is the text "ALERT STATUS" and beneath that, the Superintendent icon. Throughout this sequence his icon changes and flickers inconsistently. Beneath his icon is the logo and text "CITY OF NEW MOMBASA".

The main portion of the screen is taken up with a larger image of the Superintendent, two small green circles within a large green circle. Across the middle a large banner with a read background begins to read out "PLEASE REMAIN CALM" in several languages: Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and finally English. In the background are other variations: Dutch, Korean, German, Chinese, Portugese and French.

The background texts remain the same, while the foregrond English texts rotate through several messages.

"EXPECT DELAYS" seems an obvious message to get in a crisis from what the Superintendent appears to be-- some sort of municipal AI involved in the administration of New Mombasa. Most logically it would perhaps refer to traffic (although the city is deserted) or perhaps to the provision of services by the AI and related systems.

"ROAD CLOSED" seems to be a straightforward traffic warning.

"YELLOW MEANS YIELD" is also self-explanatory, and would seem to be a message imploring people to stay safe and follow the rules.

"OBEY POSTED LIMITS" is another message that seems traffic-focused, only missing the word "speed".

"PARDON OUR DUST" usually refers to the mess caused by construction or repair, and has traditionally been used by Bungie to indicate errors or under construction areas on its website.

After that we get the much more cryptic "MADDIE, WHERE ARE YOU?" where it is unclear who Maddie is. Perhaps New Mombasa has more than one AI, and there is another one with whom the Superintendent has lost contact.

"PROCEED WITH CAUTION" marks a return to a more traditional and straightforward safety message.

"DANGER: FLOOD ZONE" is sure to be controversial with fans since Flood means something special in the Haloverse. Here it might refer simply to the possibility of continued natural disasters following the decidedly unnatural one we have just witnessed. However, it might also refer to the arrival of Flood forces on Earth. This could possibly indicate that the event we have just witnessed is not the departure of Regret's ship from Earth, which occurred far in advance of the arrival of any Flood on Earth, which presumably occurs only during Halo 3 in the level Floodgate, as Gravemind manages to send a single Flood-infected Covenant ship to Earth. Alternatively, it might mean that the events that will be covered in this game stretch from Regret's departure at least until the Flood do arrive.

"FINAL NOTICE: BILL PAST DUE" is perhaps inserted here just to emphasize the fact that the Superintendent is not working at full capacity, given how inappropriate and irrelevant a message this is during a disaster. If the Superintendent, as an AI, is intended to fulfill the role of Cortana during this game, then any damage it suffered during this event might make it an unreliable partner, perhaps signalling a return to the Marathon-esque theme of treacherous AIs.

"KEEP IT CLEAN" has been the Superintendent's trademark phrase, perhaps indicating that his role in the administration of New Mombasa is primarily or at least significantly associated with custodial services. The same phrase also appears on the bulletin board in the mess hall of the Pillar of Autumn in Halo 1, and its repeated use in this campaign has led many to conclude that this game will follow a group of marines, rather than Spartans. The bulletin board contained other messages, including exhortations not to ride scooters on deck and a message about a lost cat answering to "Jonesy" (a reference to Alien).

At 00:37 that screen blanks; the Superintendent icon, now quite sad, relocates from the left to the top-right, and a matrix-like spout of garbage scrolls down the screen.

In amongst all the flotsam and jetsam appears the string "01/06/09" which could be the date January 6, 2009. Would Microsoft really want to release just after Christmas, instead of just before? We'll have to wait and see.

The message "REINITIALIZE" appears. This might be a simple reference to the Superintendent restarting some of his sytems; it may also be a reference to a partial "reboot" of the Halo continuity, emphasizing that this is not an entirely new story but a continuation of previous events.

By 00:42 four more messages have appeared: "WARNING! METROPOLITAN DISASTER", "CHECKING POWER...", "CHECKING COMMS..." and "ALERTING EMERGENCY SERVICES!"

The fact that emergency services have to be alerted, rather than instructed on what to do specifically, may indicate that their operation is outside the Superintendent's direct control. If such services are provided by human forces, they may be unavailable if they were also evacuated with the rest of the population. It may refer to the occupants of the drop pods.

At 00:44 we get another rooftop cam view, zoomed in more closely than before.

At 00:44 we see a repeat of the Lumumba view, except now the street is entirely ruined; cars destroyed, the signs no longer fully functional, and black debris raining from the sky. The camera briefly flickers a repeat of the view at 16:11, with the street intact, to emphasize the change.

At 00:45 we see again a view of two tower tops; and at 00:46 a tilted cityscape from a similar perspective as the very first camera. The AMG building is visible in the center, and Traxus at the bottom right. The space elevator is still intact in the far right. At the top of the screen, just above the first two towers, moving left to right, in the more distant group, a drop pod appears, moving into the frame and slightly from right to left. As it nears the buildings, at 00:49 we get a black screen and the flickering text "HALO 3", followed by the more traditional Halo 3 logo.

At 00:51 we see a view looking up from the surface between two large towers, with a single drop pod descending between them. The pod's airbrake / parachute deploys, and the pod approaches the camera position at high speed and finally smashes into it, shattering the lens. This screen displays a clock, which is curiously different from the others. It reads 16:01 when it starts and impact occurs at 16:05. However, where the other clocks appeared to show hours, minutes, seconds and hundredths of a second, this one advances rapidly from 16:01 to 16:05, as if it were minutes, seconds, hundredths and thousandths of a second, or if the camera were sped up or the clock malfunctioning. Another possibility is that the clock is now counting elapsed time from the EMP event and the second indicator is now seconds instead of minutes.

At 00:53 we see the text "PREPARE TO DROP" which is then displayed in several places and in several styles, followed by "BUNGIE" and the Bungie logo, and then the Microsoft Game Studios logo and the text "MICROSOFT GAME STUDIOS" and then a last flash of a distorted Superintendent avatar before the Xbox 360 logo and a the "Jump In" slogan, followed by a last screen flicker and display of half a Superintendent avatar.

It is interesting to note that the judicious addition of punctuation marks transforms the tagline "Prepare to drop" followed by the Bungie and MGS names and logos into the sentence, "Prepare to drop Bungie, Microsoft Game Studios." However I am 100% sure that is mere coincidence only. Really.

As near as the Intertubes can piece it together, a few days before E3, Microsoft let Bungie know they wouldn't be included in the press conference. Bungie then enacted contingency plans for their own announcement, which is what precipitated the countdown on Bungie.net.

On Tuesday Microsoft told Bungie they wouldn't be allowed to do that, either, and since Microsoft is Bungie's publisher for Halo games, and Microsoft owns the Halo intellectual property, and the announcement concerned Halo, Bungie had to do what Microsoft says, prompting Bungie president Harold Ryan's apology to the fans, which can also be interpreted as a nice polite way of flipping the bird to the publisher.

By The Way: Halo 4

But wait... the announcement concerned Halo? Well, of course. Because as soon as people started asking why Bungie's announcement was nixed, Don Mattrick came up with the answer: because Microsoft's presence at this year's E3 didn't require Bungie or Halo, and the announcement deserved its own event-- by the way Bungie is working on a new Halo game, thanks very much for asking.

That cat isn't just out of the bag. That cat has booked an all expenses paid trip to Tahiti and is already in the security line at the airport.

And now what should have been a usual little Bungie product announcement turned into a clever little web-based game of some type (exactly what we'll probably never know) has turned into a full-scale executive pissing match less than a year since Bungie went independent.

It was always hard to imagine why Microsoft would allow that, and even harder to believe that, having allowed it, they'd be universally happy about it. Somewhere at Microsoft there had to be someone who bore a grudge over this, someone who thought Bungie had gotten too big for its britches, someone who thought they ought to be made to pay, even in some small way, for having the audacity to build massive shareholder value and then stroll out the front door with it, spouting platitudes about independence and creative freedom.

The Don

Ladies and gentlemen, I present that person: Don Mattrick.

Not convinced? Take a look at the LA Times blog/story where Mattrick explains the cancellation of the announcement, and see now neatly the author is led into asserting two wholly incompatible ideas in a single paragraph: the first being Mattrick's message, and the second being cold, hard fact. Here we are:

Bungie, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2000, split from the software giant last year but agreed to give Microsoft first dibs on publishing its games.

For Microsoft, the decision was a blow but not a critical hit. Although the Halo games have contributed over a billion dollars in sales for the Redmond, Wash., giant, the company is less reliant on the franchise than it once was. The first Halo game cemented Xbox as the console of choice for many serious gamers at a time when Microsoft was just entering the market and struggling to earn respect. Halo 3, released in September, singlehandedly pulled Microsoft's console division into the black for the fiscal year ending in June, giving the division its first profit since entering the market in 2001.

Let's parse that, shall we? So first, Bungie's departure is not a "critical hit" for Microsoft, and Microsoft is "less reliant" on the franchise than it was in the past. That's Mattrick's message, quite obviously, despite the lack of quotation marks or any indication of who is speaking. Certainly there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back this up.

In fact, the factual background that immediately follows directly contradicts that statement: That Halo 3 "singlehandedly" gave the console division its first profits in seven years.

How in the heck is delivering the first profit in seven years "less dependent"? How in the heck is it not a "critical blow"? What would be a critical blow, then, a nuclear strike?

Don't Win By Too Much

It's also been suggested that Microsoft left the announcement out because Bungie's project isn't shipping this year. That doesn't wash, as more than one project included in the show and the press conference isn't shipping this year. Some are shipping next year, and some don't even have ship dates.

Another speculation is that sine Microsoft expected it was going to "win" this year's E3 even without heavy hitters like Halo or the upcoming GTA DLC, that it could afford to hold them back.

Of what value is that? Hold it back for when-- next year's E3? Is Microsoft suddenly trying to be sportsmanlike, not running up the score against Sony and Nintendo by holding back their star players because they don't need them to win? That makes no sense at all. You play the best cards in your hand the best way you know how.

If Bungie's announcement was more appropriate for a separate event, wouldn't Bungie want to have such an event? If Bungie's announcement was more appropriate for a separate event, couldn't that have been decided earlier than this past Tuesday? If Bungie's announcement was more appropriate for a separate event, couldn't that have been decided earlier than a week ago when the press conference lineup was apparently decided?

The goose that laid the golden egg walked out the door, leaving its previous owner to mind the egg. This is a spat over visitation rights-- not a reasoned approach to managing a major trade show.