Frankie has posted at Bungie.net that Best Buy may be your best friend come Halo 3's launch day:

MasterChief2829 pointed out a link to an eBay auction that claims to have the full retail Halo 3 package, including an unboxed shot.

It appears to be a PAL version of the game from Australia.

Whagi in the Xbox Live Forums warns that US and UK subscribers to Xbox Live may be targets of a phishing attempt. An email arrives that claims to require you to login to XBL due to changes to your account, but the links in the message go to a fake XBL login page that allows the perpetrators to record your username and password.

Check the forum post for full details and don't fall for it.

Hawty McBloggy compiled a list of top ten things to do while Xbox Live is down, (it's back up already) while GameDaily has a list of top ten things to do before Halo 3 comes out.

homicidal insomniac blogged something he came across in the Se7enSins.com forum; the aftermath of one of the unauthorized Epsilon players that The Hushed Casket mentioned awhile back.

The upshot?

It seems that Luke Smith first dropped the one-word bomb of confirmation in the NeoGAF forums, but in case anyone had any doubts, Smith immediately followed up with an official post on Bungie.net, which was then posted about just about everywhere, including HBO,

Logon to the beta now and you'll see that Big Team Battle has moved from training to ranked, and Double Team Training has taken its place in the social playlists. Check Bungie.net for the list of currently active playlists.

Bungie has swapped out the Team Training list for a Big Team Training playlist. This features Banshees when played on Valhalla.

SketchFactor writes at Bungie.net that if you get this status code from your Xbox:

"Status Code: Z: 8015 - 190D"

Congratulations! You've been banned for modifying your Xbox. This doesn't affect your XBL account, but does prevent that console from connecting to Xbox Live. Ever. Major Nelson also notes this on his blog.

Ducain wrote to alert me of an update at Certain Affinity's site, and it's good news all around.

First off, they're passing around the news that Frankie at Bungie.net says the map downloading problems have been fixed.

Frankie at Bungie.net writes that the planned playlist update is being delayed until next week (probably) while they continue to investigate the problems some users are having in downloading Halo 2 maps.

InsideMacGaming notes that the Myth World Cup 2007 website has launched with a fan-produced promotional video. More details are "coming soon".