Frankie has posted at Bungie.net that Best Buy may be your best friend come Halo 3's launch day:

During the launch period of Halo 3, the 25th, 26th and 27th of September, Best Buy will be sponsoring the Xbox Live Gold service and making it free for everyone. Think of it as Halo Free Gold Days. That means that even if you only have Xbox Live Silver, or you picked up a 360 just for Halo 3, that you’ll be able to try almost all of the features – online co-op, Multiplayer, Forge editing, viewing networked Saved Films - however, you will not be able to use our File Share system unless you subscribe to the paid Xbox Live Gold service.

Interesting restriction. Looks like nobody wants a lack of a Gold subscription to get in the way of Halo 3's online multiplayer numbers.

MasterChief2829 pointed out a link to an eBay auction that claims to have the full retail Halo 3 package, including an unboxed shot.

It appears to be a PAL version of the game from Australia.

Whagi in the Xbox Live Forums warns that US and UK subscribers to Xbox Live may be targets of a phishing attempt. An email arrives that claims to require you to login to XBL due to changes to your account, but the links in the message go to a fake XBL login page that allows the perpetrators to record your username and password.

Check the forum post for full details and don't fall for it.

Hawty McBloggy compiled a list of top ten things to do while Xbox Live is down, (it's back up already) while GameDaily has a list of top ten things to do before Halo 3 comes out.

Just remember, this isn't really Halo news, just an amazing NBC simulation. The items range from the practical (sleeping) to the commercial (buy gamefuel) and from the sublime (live action oddball) to the ridiculous (live action teabagging).

Louis Wu posted up the former list, and Avateur pointed out the latter in the HBO forum.

homicidal insomniac blogged something he came across in the Se7enSins.com forum; the aftermath of one of the unauthorized Epsilon players that The Hushed Casket mentioned awhile back.

The upshot?

Banned. Until December 31, 9999. Not just the XBL gamertag, but the console as well.

So, yes: it is possible to override the per-gamertag restriction on closed test executables like the Halo 3 Epsilon test if you can get access to the gamertag account of an authorized user.

It is also very, very easy for Microsoft to find you. So don't bother.

UPDATE: It is worth noting that this entire process is very similar to that surrounding the COD4 Beta. News outlets have been claiming that Microsoft recently banned over 20,000 XBL accounts for unauthorized access to this beta, but Major Nelson is denying this, despite admitting that unauthorized access to such a beta is a violation of the Terms of Service.

Also, this dialogue between | Scar | and another banned Epsilon player on the Xbox.com forum is nothing short of hilarious.

It seems that Luke Smith first dropped the one-word bomb of confirmation in the NeoGAF forums, but in case anyone had any doubts, Smith immediately followed up with an official post on Bungie.net, which was then posted about just about everywhere, including HBO, The Hushed Casket, Xbox360Fanboy, GameSpy, and even Major Nelson.

So the long and the short of it is that, in line with fan expectations, Halo 3 will have online cooperative player over both System Link and Xbox Live. In fact, doing last year's shooter supreme Gears of War one better, it will support not just two players, but up to four players in this mode.

Smith tells us why Bungie was silent until now on this most-requested feature:

We've been playing it for quite some time, and bluntly, having some of our greatest ever Halo experiences. We wanted to make sure all our "t"s were crossed and our "i"s dotted before unveiling this important new part of Halo 3's Campaign mode.

Apart from the horrifying network challenges this new mode presented us, were the various gameplay balance issues it adds to the fray. So we got it all together, polished it, and that's why we're revealing it now. As a result, you're going to want to play co-op as hard as you can stomach it. We'd certainly recommend Legendary, but we'll be revealing some more ways to make the game more interesting and challenging for multiple players in the very near future.

Acting as a team is a fantastic new twist to the Campaign gameplay - something that works as well on foot, in close confines as it does on the battlefield, with large scale vehicle mayhem. Scared of Jackal snipers? Send out a scout to see what dangers lie ahead. Terrified of an open field? Flank your enemies and swipe their rides. The combinations and scenarios are endless - and you'll be able to enjoy them time and time again in Saved Films of your co-op exploits.

We mentioned that we've been having a blast. We have a lot of stories. Many of them would require that we explain some of the reasons replay will be a big factor, but not quite yet. Soon, we promise.

Check out the full article at Bungie.net for details on the Elite characters that cooperative players 3 and 4 will have to choose from; players 1 and 2, of course, are the Master Chief and the Arbiter, as widely suspected after the multiple appearances of the pair in the E3 Campaign Trailer.

Logon to the beta now and you'll see that Big Team Battle has moved from training to ranked, and Double Team Training has taken its place in the social playlists. Check Bungie.net for the list of currently active playlists.

Bungie has swapped out the Team Training list for a Big Team Training playlist. This features Banshees when played on Valhalla.

SketchFactor writes at Bungie.net that if you get this status code from your Xbox:

"Status Code: Z: 8015 - 190D"

Congratulations! You've been banned for modifying your Xbox. This doesn't affect your XBL account, but does prevent that console from connecting to Xbox Live. Ever. Major Nelson also notes this on his blog.

Ducain wrote to alert me of an update at Certain Affinity's site, and it's good news all around.

First off, they're passing around the news that Frankie at Bungie.net says the map downloading problems have been fixed.

Secondly, the first Certain Affinity fansite, CertainAffinity.net, is now open for business, although you may still smell sawdust from fresh construction.

Frankie at Bungie.net writes that the planned playlist update is being delayed until next week (probably) while they continue to investigate the problems some users are having in downloading Halo 2 maps.

For what it's worth, I've been able to get the maps now, both on my old Xbox console and on my 360. What I still can't do is get all the old map packs on the 360; when attempting that, I get the continual "installation has failed" error with the unhelpful link to Xbox Support that others are getting while trying to download the newer maps.

InsideMacGaming notes that the Myth World Cup 2007 website has launched with a fan-produced promotional video. More details are "coming soon".

For Halo fans unfamiliar with the game, Myth is a fantastic real-time tactical combat game that eschews resource management and focuses solely on managing troops in battle. It was released for Macs and PCs, and the fan community has kept the games updated for running on modern operating systems. Two online communities exist at PlayMyth and MariusNet.

If you really don't know what Myth is, this page at ProjectMagma will tell you; if that sparks your interest, you can get a demo of Myth 2: Soulblighter.