This has gone beyond amusing into the realm of annoying. Shane Kim, GM of Microsoft Game Studios, responded to a question about Halo 3 thusly:

Shane Kim: I call it The Mythical Halo 3 - we haven't announced any such game yet! Obviously the Halo franchise is very important to us. When you have Bill Gates being quoted fairly constantly, talking about a game, you know it's important to the company. But his recent comments reflect the position accurately. Which is that, if there were a Halo 3 we would be careful about how we announce and introduce it.

Does anybody honestly believe that Microsoft's chairman doesn't know what's going on with a product like Halo and has to be reminded before repeatedly making public statements? Does anyone honestly not believe that what actually went on here is that Gates spilled the beans-- more than once-- and then had to be reined in to respect the right of Bungie Studios to control their own announcements about what games are under development?

Of course Bungie should jealously protect whatever rights for self-determination they received in terms of the buyout; but for everyone else, this game isn't fun anymore. If there is actually a Halo 3 under development, then the final revelation that it does, in fact, exist, is going to evoke universal reactions of "no kidding". If it isn't, then Microsoft has been playing coy all this time when it could have just said it was giving the Halo franchise a rest for awhile to let Bungie work on something else. They haven't said that. In fact, at this time, if it were announced that Halo 3 was NOT under development for the Xbox 360, you'd probably see Microsoft's stock take a hit, as if there's no system-selling game coming out once the supply problems are taken care of, there'll be little reason that all the Halo and Halo 2 fans have to upgrade. They might have survived such negative consequences had they made such an announcement right after the launch of Halo 2. But everyone is expecting Halo 3 now.

Either Halo 3 is currently in development for the Xbox 360, or we've all been so fooled by Microsoft's application of reverse psychology that our brain matter has turned to mush.

Incidentally, Bungie knew that people would be scrutinizing their last update-- a video tour of their offices which for reasons of secrecy doesn't actually feature much of their offices, unless you count Starbuck's, the alley outside, a storage area and the air conditioners part of the office-- for clues about the next project, so the titles "Pimps At Sea" and even "Marathon 4" were prominently featured on whiteboards for our amusement.

Dean Takahashi, author of Opening the Xbox and gaming columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, has written a feature story about Microsoft's ambitious plans for the Xbox 360.

Two major categories of news in this roundup: Stubbs and Xbox 360.

NewCityChicago's Mike Schramm has produced a nicely researched little feature on Alex "The Man" Seropian; it includes a brief history of Bungie, with a proper tip of the hat to Marathon as the genesis of Halo, and an introduction to Wideload and their brainchild, Stubbs the Zombie.

Amped IGO Features has an article up detailing the successes and failures of the original Xbox. Chief among the former, naturally, was Microsoft's acquisition of Bungie Software to bring Halo to their fledgling console.

Thanks 3Suns, who pointed this out in the HBO forum.

If it's written enough times, it might just become the truth. DailyGame is repeating rumors of Xbox 360 shortages, saying that Microsoft may have lowered the estimate of how many consoles will be available on launch day, and many retailers are listing even their extremely expensive bundles as "sold out" in response.

On the eve of Halo 2's first anniversary, most of the hype isn't about what Bungie is doing, but what Microsoft is doing to get ready the vehicle for whatever Bungie does next: the Xbox 360. We've got:

Seth Jayson at the financial analysis site the Motley Fool thinks that the rumors of Xbox 360 shortages exist to spur demand for the console, and the in fact Microsoft will have plenty of the console available for the holidays.

(Here's hoping they're right, as I still haven't preordered--Ed.)

The buzz on Microsoft's next console is continuing to rise. Here are just a few of the stories in the last day or so:

Seth Schiesel at the old grey lady wrote his impressions of the Xbox 360 after sitting down with one at Microsoft's X05 show in Amsterdam last week. While Bungie wasn't showing anything, it is impossible for the new console to escape the shadow of its star franchise, even when nothing's actually been said about it. In comparison, it seems that the shooter slated for the marquee spot in the 360's launch lineup is faring very well:

Microsoft continues to play cagey with information about the Halo franchise in the aftermath of Gates' E3 comments and the absence of an official announcement by Bungie.

Interviewing Peter Moore and J Allard, Game Informer had the following exchange:

GI: Would you hold Halo 3 for the same time as the launch for the movie?

Moore: Halo what? What are you talking about?

Xbox.com has been updated with the official announcement of the expected launch lineup for the Xbox 360, as well as the official press release naming Peter Jackson as Executive Producer of the Halo film.

More details on the Halo movie front today. The Register opines that the involvement of Peter Jackson is just window dressing; Louis Wu at HBO points out the lack of whining on the grapevine, as well as quotes from Jackson in a Reuters story, as evidence to the contrary.