Matt Soell has cause quite a stir in the community with his latest post on HALO, multiplay, and the XBox:

Unfortunately it's not possible for us to code support for internet play without more info than we have now. So Xbox Halo won't magically work over the internet when MS gets their networking stuff up. I don't think a patch will happen either.

A separate product is a possibility, but as things stand right now there is no definite plan for such a product. The team gets to decide what they work on next, but they won't make that decision until Halo is done.

I should make clear that I'm talking specifically about the Xbox version of Halo here.

I'd always found HALO's multiplayer vision to be the most intriguing aspect of the game and it's sad to see it eliminated just so it can be a launch title. *sigh*