SPOnG says that production of the Xbox 360 will begin this August. Rumors of constrained availability due to high preorder rates have also been circulating...

Aspyr Media writes to remind us that Halo 3 isn't the only game to look forward to; Stubbs the Zombie impressed at E3 (GameSpot, Eurogamer, Xbox Advanced) and even won two awards, being mentioned in 1Up.com's Best of E3 2005 and

Frankie is back at Bungie now with a brand-new Weekly What's Update. This one covers the teleporter glitch on Relic (it's "being taken care of"), demos for Halo and Halo 2, and what Sketch would look like if he ate all the pies.

Xbox Live users in #hbo have begun reporting that the second set of Halo 2 downloadable maps, Terminal, Backwash, Elongation, Relic, and Gemini, are now available for download for $11.99. Thanks Tex.

The BBC has the story that a 22-year-old UK resident and Cambridge graduate was sentenced to 140 hours community service and ordered to pay £750 in court costs after being caught selling modified Xbox consoles, fitted with a 200GB hard drive and 80 pre-installed games.

The UK's enactment of the EU Copyright Directive in 2003 makes the modification of consoles illegal; Sony won a case prohibiting the sale of modchips in the UK in 2004.

Kikizo is offering a 26-minute video interview with Microsoft's Robbie Bach about the upcoming Xbox 360 console. The only mention of Halo is listed in their text summary as follows:

The same Halo 3 / PS3 spoiler question we asked J - as much time as needed...

Grenadiac has announced that the forums and files areas of HaloMods will close temporarily until the next auto-update of Halo 2, to try and help stop the spread of information about cheats in the game.

• Bungie's latest What's What Update is all about cheating and assuring players that the situation is going to improve; apparently another auto-update is on the way.
• Bungie is also looking to hire artists, animators, and programmers.

A lot of goings-on in the Halo 2 Map world recently. Of course, the Killtacular Pack which was released as a split between two free maps and two premium maps is now available in its entirety for free from Xbox Live; Containment, Warlock, Turf and Sanctuary.

With both SketchFactor and Frankie off gallivanting (no doubt accelerating at 32 feet per second per second, naturally) Shishka was left alone at the switch this week, and submitted three QuickTime 3d screenshots of Terminal in lieu of the What's What Update for last week.

Major Nelson pointed out in his blog a five-page interview at Team Xbox with Todd Holmdahl that covers nearly every aspect of the Xbox 360's hardware, from audio to graphics to memory, hard drives and peripherals, with many pointed questions comparing the system's specs to Sony's.

Torlough of the Geezer Gamers has put up a story and a video on cheating in Containment; XBL players with modded Xboxes are apparently modifying the downloaded map files to produce various effects such as flying Warthogs and an incredibly fast Master Chief, and using them to cheat in matchmaking. Thanks HBO.