Eurogamer is doing a retrospective on the top twelve exclusive franchises for the first Xbox console. Halo 1 and 2 unsurprisingly clock in at #1.

1Up's latest Halo feature is a retrospective on the Halo series. The teaser on their three weeks of Halo 3 microsite mentions the "Halo/Marathon universe" but there's nary a mention of Marathon there, and as we all know, the two universes are separate anyway. Right?

Five years ago today, Halo shipped to eager Bungie fans and the unsuspecting masses of Xbox early adopters around the world. To commemorate this (and whet your appetite for whatever big news is to come later) Frankie has put up an Anniversary Panel of game journalists and fansite editors (including HBO's own Louis Wu) to ask them about what they're looking forward to in Halo 3 and what their favorite things about Halo and Halo 2 are.

Nick from HaloDev let us know that their site has re-opened with a new backend system and a lovely bunch of coconuts. The site has FAQs for HaloDev as well as for the Prometheus editor, community forums, and developer blogs.

Funkmon over at Subnova wrote up a scathing review of Eric Nylund's latest Halo novel, Ghosts of Onyx. Although he gave high marks for writing and story, in the end he wanted fewer new characters and more of the Master Chief-- and the reality is the book isn't about Master Chief at all.

Coming Soon has up what it claims is an official press release from Wingnut Films, detailing a joint decision by Microsoft and Wingnut to delay production of the Halo feature film until such time as they can guarantee they'll be bringing a "first class film" version of the game to screens.

In his blog, Eric Trautmann notes that author of the "Armor Testing" story in the Halo Graphic Novel, Jay Faerber, will sign your stuff and answer your questions at Olympic Cards and Comics in Lacey, WA.

After that, there's a Halo tournament with prizes!

Cinema Blend and CanMag have two completely different takes on the same event. Apparently, just before making an initial payment, Universal and Fox asked Microsoft and the producers to lower their profit-sharing on the Halo movie. Microsoft refused, and now Fox and Universal are out of the picture.

• Next Generation: Game Trailers Hitch Up (mentions the H3 trailer)
• Marine Corps Times: Halo becomes literary blood-and-bone ballet (about the graphic novel)

Stuff has a story by Gerard Campbell on how the formation of Wingnut Interactive, working on a future series of digital entertainment products in Bungie's Halo universe, is bringing New Zealand into the heart of the next-generation gaming industry.

Peter Jackson has just been on stage with Peter Moore to announce the formation of Wingnut Interactive.

I really believe that there is a new form of entertainment that is not a film and is not a game. I am not a game designer. But what I am really interested in is in the idea of taking games and stories that could be films, but might not be films.