Rampancy

Steve Ballmer, never one to pass up the chance to shoot his mouth off, apparently spilled the beans on Halo 3 all the way back last fall at the Microsoft Office 2003 launch. It went unnoticed until Richard Watkins found it and told Louis Wu at HBO. Of course, that doesn't necessarily means he knows it for sure; the statement might have been made predicated on the idea that MS would never let a good title go unfranchised:

We're working on the next version -- I hate to tell you this confidentially but I'll have to swear you to secrecy now -- we're working on the next version of Xbox right now and we're working on Halo 2 and Halo 3, the two newest versions of the game.

Incidentally, we wonder how useful it is to swear anyone to secrecy, and then place your statement in a document posted on the web. Perhaps Ballmer doesn't quite get this 'Internet' thing yet.

vshields ash pointed out in the HBO forum an article from SPOnG.com that says that Microsoft's XBL servers have begun querying consoles for information about their hard drives.

So far, the article says, no one with a modified hard drive has been denied access, but they speculate that this could be the start of searching hard drives for modified versions of system or game files, such as Halo's cached .map files.

Sage Scorpion wished everyone a Happy Ides Of March in the HBO forum, so everybody beware.

HBO's Louis Wu pointed out a Halo multiplayer strategy guide by Kris Hull, who apparently knows a secret or two about Marathon, if the URL is to be believed. At the end of the guide is an interesting little glossary; I think Mulganistan borders Kazakhstan somewhere. They only play Counter Strike.