The latest email update from Gamasutra, a site devoted to game development, lists positions for a developer and an 3d environmental artist as open.

c0ld vengeance has given us his plan for how to handle Halo 2 when it comes out, and entitled it Halo 2: A Bachelor's Guide . We might actually try this; although, to be honest, this is only a slightly formalized version of an average weekend.

IGN is reporting that Halo has now been included in the holiday promotional package that comes with every Xbox sold between December 11 and 31 in Germany. Earlier the bundle included Jet Set Radio Future and Sega GT; now it comes with all three games.

Thanks to Acrappa for the heads-up on RHL.

Of course, the other thing that inevitably occurs in the void between releases is boredom, and it leads to things like this, and this, and this, to which Matt responded thusly.

The original organizers of the Halo Winter Season tournament currently run at iGames locations have resigned over philosophical differences with iGames. Jester and Psyrixx have both resigned; Jester posted about it in the HBO forum, and put his letter of resignation up at The Psyjnir Complex. It reads, in part:

The Halo Winter Season's second round of qualifiers is set to begin obn December 14. The first round was on November 2nd, and the third and final qualifier will be held on January 11. Each qualifier consists of a series of four man games of a single game type. The top two teams at each Qualifier will advance to one of eight regional tournaments to begin on February 2nd. Apparently there are going to be some nice prizes for the winners.

A reader over at HBO named gd found some funny and strange sound clips while playing Halo. Get all the info in the HBO forum.

A track from Halo that didn't make it onto the CD (a fact discovered by Bungie fan Micah Allen) has been added to the Outtakes page at Bungie.net. Kudos to Louis Wu at HBO.

Matt has returned to the HBO forum to disabuse the usual suspects of their delusion about release dates from Electronics Boutique.

Okay, okay... despite flat statements to the contrary from the developer (something along the lines of it is not Marathon 4 , if I recall) and the serious mismatches in timelines and terminology, Game Girl Advance has advanced the theory that Halo really is the sequel to Marathon Infinity, citing the use of the Marathon logo and the basic similarities between the two games. You be the judge.

Pardon us if we hadn't noticed this before, but in a recent Xbox365 article, a forumgoer noted this site, Gamertag Database, which at the time of this writing lists 8,701 Xbox Live gamertags worldwide.

In ways reminiscent of old-school Bungie fashion, the hunt is on.

Go.

Update: And it's done, by the crew on Subnova Hotline. Just type in .fortune as a Halo profile name, and you'll trigger the egg - a throwback to Bungie.net Myth play. Read through the whole messy process in the chat log here.

Noctavis has posted his early impressions of the Xbox Live service, having spent some time playing three games that utilize it: MechAssault, Unreal Championship, and Ghost Recon. Check it out.

Matt Soell at Bungie has put up a short summary of how the Halo Winter Season Tournament is progressing. So far 1,100 gamers have showed up at over 75 iGames centers. The next round begins on December 14. Thanks again to Louis Wu.

David Evil Otto Candland (formerly CandyMan) has put up a primer on various methods for making online nicknames over at the Seventh Column site. Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO for the warning.