GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Microsoft says Xbox games will need to be recompiled to work with Xbox 360. This would seem to indicate-- although it is not yet clear-- that even your old games will have to be repurchased in order to run-- unless the console can recompile it by itself, which seems extremely unlikely. Not good news for those banking on this feature. Thanks 3Suns, who linked to this in the HBO forum.

UPDATE: I'm retagging this as a rumor. Major Nelson has already busted it. Move along, nothing to see here.

Voodoo Extreme is reporting from the Microsoft press conference at E3 that the Xbox 360 console will be able to play the some Xbox titles via emulation. On his blog, Major Nelson also repeats the claim issued by Robbie Bach at E3: that the Xbox 360 will play "the most popular" Xbox titles. There are also other interesting bullet points, and surely more details will come out as the conference continues; MS is expecting between 25-40 titles for the new console in 2005, and something called "Xbox Live Marketplace" will allow gamers to create and sell for cash custom game content. (One assumes that "most popular" would include at least Halo and Halo 2--Ed.)

Weapon respawn times for Warlock, Turf, Containment and Sanctuary have been added by Typher to HBO's weapon respawn page. Louis Wu posted the news at HBO.

Major Nelson points out in his blog this Wired interview with J Allard.

The article clearly places Bungie's Halo and Halo 2 in the proper pivotal place in the Xbox's history:

Then came Halo 2. Microsoft gave its in-house studio, Bungie, a Hollywood-size production and marketing budget for the sequel. Elaborate teasers ran alongside movie trailers, and Bungie's preview at E3 in May 2004 wowed members of the game industry press. Last November, fans lined up around the block to pay their $50. When the stampede was over, the title had posted a bigger opening day - $125 million - than Hollywood's biggest-ever three-day opening weekend ($114 million for Spider-Man). As it turned out, Halo 2 lived up to its hype. Perhaps most important, it took full advantage of the Xbox's online capabilities, allowing players to trash-talk long distance in real time. In its third year, the Xbox division turned its first profit during what Ballmer refers to it as "the Halo 2 quarter."

However, aside from two oblique references without any specific information, there's nothing about a possible Halo 3.

Frankie's What's What Update for May 13, 2005 mentions that the next map release date is now July 5 instead of June 28.

Bungie's put up their side of their loss to the Xbox Live team in the Humpday Challenge; they allege that XBL used a ringer. And according to SketchFactor, Major Nelson Suxorz.

UPDATE: Major Nelson is denying the charge of ringer leveled by Bungie against one member of the XBL team that played in the Humpday.

Major Nelson has put up his summary of the latest Humpday Challenge that pitted Xbox Live against Bungie. Xbox Live prevailed, winning narrowly in Team Slayer and 3 Plots and pulling out a tie in Multi Flag CTF. All three games were played on new maps; Sanctuary, Turf, and Containment, respectively. (Against anyone else, Bungie might have an advantage playing on the new maps, but I'm betting Xbox Live personnel probably also got a chance to test them prior to release, so that advantage may have been negated in this case--Ed.)

XerxdeeJ has announced in the HBO forum that he's started a Halo blog called Tied The Leader. There's an interesting piece there now called Sportsmanship and Anonymity that covers some well-traveled territory; the seeming need for many XBL players-- regardless of ability-- to utilize proximity voice for displaying their facility with colorful language.

(This is one of those rare social problems with a clear technical solution. Proximity voice is cool, but useless. It's only ever used for trash talk, swearing and racism. And the possibility of being overheard via proximity voice while talking to your team discourages the use of the communicator for legitimate purposes. Bungie, please-- make team talk the default without pressing any buttons, and either remove proximity voice entirely, or make the button-press a "broadcast" to all players in the game, like countless of other PC shooters with keyboard interfaces-- like PC Halo, for instance. Kudos for the innovation, but extra credit for realizing the experiment's gone wrong. The potential coolness of proximity voice for well-meant, consensual, and witty taunting is more than overwhelmed by everything else--Ed.)

Just a short while ago, Apple released version 10.4 of OS X, codenamed Tiger. One of the new features it introduced was Dashboard, a controversially Konfabulator-like feature.

Lacsap has created a Dashboard widget that displays your Halo 2 ranking. He announced it in an HBO forum post; you can download it from Dashboardwidgets.com.

Mike Miller has brought his fantastic Halo 2 Legendary Walkthrough to a close with a video-laden page on The Great Journey. If you've played the game all the way through but haven't read this series yet, then do yourself a favor and check it out. If you're still stuck somewhere trying to beat Legendary, swallow your pride and look for some tips. Louis Wu posted a link to this at HBO.

In an article at the Hollywood Reporter that focuses on Hitman, the best-selling Halo 2 soundtrack is used as a benchmark for the industry, selling 120,000 copies in its first volume, about 12 times the sales of the average game soundtrack. Louis Wu at HBO provided the heads-up.