Last week's What's What Update by Frankie at Bungie.net was inaccessible to us for awhile over the weekend, as was all of Bungie.net; however, we can load it now to point out the response to Bill Gates' announcement at E3 that the Sony PlayStation 3 launch would "run right into Halo 3", despite remarks in the previous WWU that Bungie's next project would not be announced for some time.

The question and answer in full from the update:

Aaron asks,
Bill Gates said you guys were working on Halo 3 in Time Magazine. If you deny this, or try to talk your way around it, you're basically saying he's a jerk. So is he? Is he a jerk?
 
No, he's awesome. Seriously. I once asked him if he had underwater speakers in his pool and he totally didn't have me killed for insolence. And for the record, he does. His subaquatic sound system is better than my terrestrial one.

It's worth noting that Gates actually never mentioned Bungie at all; just Halo 3. Frankie, of course, has avoided the question entirely, so it looks like we're in for a bit of a wait before we find out what's really going on. Emails regarding this question to various Bungie personnel usually involved in interacting with the community have so far gone unanswered, although that in itself is not likely indicative of anything given the volume of mail they probably receive.