Achronos has posted up at Bungie.net that the Seventh Column will be shut down next week, on September 7, for major upgrades including a new look, new forums, and a new user database. Some important notes:

There's mention of the Wideload - Aspyr deal today at Evil Avatar (story, press release) and at SPOnG.

Wideload Games has signed its first publishing deal with Apsyr Media, according to IGN. Aspyr Media is an outfit that publishes Mac games as well as some music CDs and movies on DVD. The article goes on to further narrow the unofficial launch of Wideload's first game to Fall of 2005.

The article quotes Seropian as being persuaded by Aspyr's promise of focusing on his new company.

Gary "Dolbex" Williams of Been Mawed and Halo50k3.com is announcing a new Halo tournament, Halo50k3, will be held on July 24 and 25, 2004, in Atlanta, Georgia, and will be presented by Major League Gaming.

According to their press release, these are the tournament details:

Achronos has posted on Bungie.net again about the site, which they expect to be down for perhaps as long as 6 hours on Monday morning starting at 8 Pacific. This covers all official Bungie websites.

Bungie is having another Bungie Fan Fest at E3 this year, but there are only 50 spots, so go and register-- quick! For details, read SketchFactor's post on the Fest.

Gamespy is reporting that the long-rumored price cut for Microsoft's Xbox, bringing the unit under $150 in the US, has been announced by MS and will finally happen in April of 2004. The Xbox is now cheaper than the leading next-generation console, the PlayStation 2 from Sony. A second-generation Xbox is widely rumored for release in 2005.

Rapture of cookedgamers posted in the HBO forum that Gearbox Software, the company that ported Halo from the Xbox to Windows, has announced a new project, apparently called WarStory. He's linked to a single page at http://www.warstorygame.com which appears to be registered to Gearbox.

The Bungie Studios page has what looks like two new job entries on it today; one for an Environment Finishing Artist, and one for a Character Animator.

Deimos Fawkes of Subnova writes that their file and game hosting activities may have to be curtailed in the future due to financial considerations. More detail if we get it.
Emil at CobaltNova seems to be retiring-- we saw this a few days ago but weren't sure it was for good, since the news post was so short. However, it looks like it is.

News.com's David Becker is reporting that M-Systems, a maker of flash memory, is announcing that they've signed a contract with Microsoft to provide memory systems for future Xbox products.