Matt Soell of Micro... er.. Bungie made a couple of messageboard postings on Bungie.orggiving some status updateson both Halo as well as Oni. Halo sounds likeit is going through some pretty drastic changes since the public last saw it: (Thanks InsideMacGames)

The guys at STOMPED have gotten a hold of the original MPEG for that Halomovie that showed up on NVNews a little while ago. Much better quality if you want toget a closer look.

The NVNews guys have scored another new Halomovie. This one was made for NVidia topromote the spankin new GeForce2 card when it was unveiled at WinHEC (where I first sawit). Pretty cool stuff.

Since everyone loves the pretty Halo pictures but no one is too sure if we'll actually be seeing the game on the PC (since Microsoft bought Bungie to do X-Box development), here's another story courtesy of Telefragged. From the latest issue of Edge, a well respected UK gaming print magazine comes this quote from Bungie's Joseph Staten talking about Halo development. This was part of an article about developing games from consoles where various developers had their say

"Throughout Halo's design process, we've had to face tough choices about limiting the game's scope to accommodate lower-end PC systems. Now that we're making the game for the X-Box first and foremost, we haven't thrown away our old performance guidelines, but we certainly feel a lot more comfortable committing to high-poly models, more detailed textures, a litany of shader effects, inane physics - all the really sexy things that X-Box is capable of. Tackling a game as ambitious as Halo, it feels really good to have a clear hardware target. Even better, one that allows the whole team to create stuff that's a lot more complex than we originally planned."

So it really seems that X-Box development is absolutely first and that Mac and PC will trail behind it. Although X-Box specs might not seem much to PC owners next year, the performance that you get from single configuration optimization will probably mean only high end PCs will get to enjoy the game, if at all. Or maybe we get a cut down version. Wouldn't that suck total ass?

There's a story about the release of Bungie's Halo on Inside Mac Games. According to info from Apple, Halo will be released for Microsoft's X-box and the Mac OS simultaneously, and not with the X-box first as may have been thought. No word on the PC release, but you'd think it would be the same time as well.
update Matt sends word of this update on Halo Vault

I think this "announcement" is the product of some overzealous copywriting over at Apple, or at least someone with only vague memories of what was said on stage at the Expo.

As far as I know, we can't guarantee a simultaneous release on all platforms right now. I wish it were otherwise. If it happens, you'll hear it from us, not from Apple eNews.

Inside Mac Games has an interview with Bungie CEO Alexander Seropian, talking to him about Halo. The interview is in the form of a 3.8mb Quicktime movie.

The folks at PlanetXbox have gottenconfirmation from Microsoft that Halo will in fact be making its way to the PC platformafter all. (To go along with its appearanceon the Mac platform) The only problem being there is no specified time frame for thatport to happen but at least its kinda good news.

A number of of posts on the Mac Gaming Forum say that it has been announced at Macworld that Bungie's Halo WILL be coming to the Mac, as Apple and Microsoft are joining together to get all the MS games to the Mac platform. This probably is a good sign for the PC version as well, if Microsoft is saying that Bungie will still do the Mac version. After Microsoft purchased Bungie it was believed Halo would become a Xbox exclusive title. Thanks stiki figgaz.

Part 3 of CGO's Halo preview is up, with more info about the Bungie game. This part covers seamless environment transition, and the multiplayer part of the game.

The second part of CGO'sHalo article is online. Feel free to weep the once promising PC platform game. Btw, Igot word that the official Bungie page changed from 'coming soon to a PC and Mac near you'to 'coming soon to a platform near you'. Bah.

According to loonyboi over at Blues News, this month's Next Generation Magazine has an article on Microsoft's Xbox, which includes a sidebar piece on the Bungie merger. Microsoft's Ed Fries mentions another Halo-engine powered game, Fantasy Siege, apparently the third game in development at Bungie.

For two years running Bungie has wowed the crowds with the astonishing Halo, and according to Fries, "What is even more impressive is Fantasy Siege - a totally different type of game running on the same engine. The engine is a very important thing to us, and is a huge part of the deal."

Just to remind you again how purty the Halo engine is, here are some Halo screenshots.

The first part of CGO's Halo preview is online. The article specifically talks about why the game has been hyped so much already, and also gives a bit of the story in the game. They've also included some new screenshots.

Well, its here. the full E3 trailer that was being shown at uh... E3. (Allow myself tointroduce myself). You can grab itfrom this FilePlanet page. It's a pretty damn nasty 166meg download but if you havethe means, I highly recommend it. Thanks to the guys at BattleGround: Halo. It's a bitanti-climactic now that the possibility of seeing Halo on the PC format is in doubt, butthe footage will still induce a few 'holy shits'. Grab it! For the less bandwidthfortunate, you can grab the hackedup version right here. Another option is grabbing the PC Gamer August edition, as the movie is included on the cover disk.

PC Format is reporting that Microsoft is saying Halo will be released on PC as was the original plan.

Microsoft actually rang us yesterday to give us the bottom line on what's going on. Bungie will *definitely* remain an independent group within Microsoft - getting access to the big M's marketing clout and cash pile - whilst Gates' company gets some top game talent. Halo will still arrive as planned on the PC - but will also be released on X-Box.

No word on a Mac release though.

Well there seem to be a lot of emails coming in about this one: There's a Halo petition right here where they want to show how many people would prefer to see Halo on the PC and Mac since Bungie isn't sure on doing any port besides the X-Box version yet. Hey you never know if it might help. As I write this there are 2748 signatures.

The guys at InsideMacGames have a singular new Haloscreenshot. The depression of probably not seeing Halo for quite a while has sunk in.Suck.

The Oregon Public Proadcasting site has an article that was written last year by Robert X. Cringely and talks about the fact that Microsoft acquisitions makes hardly anyone happy. It mainly discusses Hotmail but of course this can be brought back to Bungie. Thanks Halo.bungie.org, by ways of R-2-RO.

It looks like the big Microsoft& Bungie announcement storm is getting wrapped up. I'm pretty bummed about thewhole thing myself, but I can understand the business opportunity and reasoning behind themove. I dont have to agree with it or anything though. :) Here is a bunch more stuff foryou guys: (Last full item for the whole MS/Bungie thing around here, honest!)

- DailyRadar interview with Jason Jones
- MacCentral talks with some execs from TakeTwo about it.
- An edited chat log from the Bungie chat of last night.
- Gamers.com gets some community reaction from webmasters and a former employee.
- IGN talks with Ed Fries of Microsoft and Alex Seopian of Bungie about the situation.

There's a new Halo shot on Blues News. It's like 500kb, but pretty damn good looking like all those previous shots (seen here).

Of course everyone is just on this Bungie acquisation story today. Stomped has an interview with Harry Miller from Gathering of Developers, talking to him about the Oni and Myth franchise Take Two now owns and if G.O.D will be using their current partners to make games based on these franchises or if they're on the lookout for new developers. Bungie themselves put up a FAQ related to the acquisition, as well as a letter to their fans.