In a forum post over at Halo.bungie.org, community guy Matt Soell responded to a question about whether or not players of the X-Box and Mac/PC versions of Halo would be able to play network games together.

The answer, it appears, is 'unlikely'. While none of the specific issues were discussed in the post, there is speculation that the supposedly superior graphic capabilities of the X-Box may require that Halo's game content be toned down for release on personal computers, essentially creating two separate, but similar, games.

What does this mean for legions of Bungiefen who are sticking to their Mac and PC guns? Probably not much. If the majority of computer gamers don't switch over to Microsoft's upcoming console, then the online community of Halo gamers probably wouldn't be any smaller than the Myth community. The difference would just be that there'd be a potentially much bigger online community of players using X-Box hardware, but no way to connect the two groups. A shame, perhaps, but only if you look at it in a glass-half-empty sort of way.