It's not quite what you think. Wired News interviews Epic's Mark Rein about the Unreal Engine 3 technology. While usually it's CliffyB letting his mouth run away with him a little bit, here it's Rein, who is positively bubbling over the fact that Gears of War cost only ten million dollars to make.

So, while Sony is pushing Killzone 2 as their Halo-killer, Rein wants to bring Halo to the PlayStation. Except it's called Unreal Tournament.

WN: Are you guys open at this point to another big project, like if Sony were to come to you and say, make us a Halo for PS3.

MR: We've got one, Unreal Tournament 3! It's the Halo for PlayStation 3. I hope so. We're going to do some really fun stuff with the controller, it's going to look amazing, run well. We're hoping. That'd be nice.

Is there a game for the PlayStation 3 that doesn't want to either kill Halo 3, or be Halo 3?

Bungie.net has a new moderator, Evilcam, and as a reward, he gets an interview with KP. Let's hope that satisfaction in a job well done is reward enough.

Games In Action gets to the bottom of the conspiracy that put KP in position to get Frankie's coffee keep the Halo fan community abreast of Halo 3's development. It's a sordid tale of job applications and interviews that exposes the seamy underbelly of game development.

Of course, working at Bungie isn't all sushi farts and roses, but there are advantages, says KP:

The best part is being a part of the playtests, easily. It’s like having a LAN at your buddy’s house except it’s better ventilated, everyone has their own setup and sometimes your box crashes. Not only are they fun but often there’ll be some pretty in-depth discussions after the fact. At first I just watched those go down, but now that I’ve actually got some experience and skill playing the game, I’m comfortable sharing my opinion. It’s very cool to have the ear of the Halo 3 multiplayer lead.

One can only wonder if that ear is going to end up in a jar, like Ling Ling. Thanks for the heads-up to Louis Wu at (where else?) HBO.

What Louis Wu says about the article "Inside Bungie" at EDGE magazine is one hundred percent correct; even those who have been peering at Bungie through spyglasses and telescopes for years can learn a lot of new things about the studio in this rare look behind the scenes. Go. Read. NOW.

Max "Yeroen" Hoberman, Bungie alum and founder of Texas-based Certain Affinity, now working on new Halo 2 multiplayer maps for release next year, gave an interview to Firing Squad.

However, that's not all they're working on, apparently:

FiringSquad: You are also working on a new game. What can you tell us about this game at this stage?

Max Hoberman: Sorry, I can't really say much. We've been in development since November 1st, and we're excited about where it's going, but it's way too early to discuss!

Thanks to 3Suns for the heads-up in the HBO forum.

Ducain put up an interview at High Impact Halo where Shdw Shinobi and Mr. Sprout put questions to HBO's webmaster, Louis Wu. No, not the one with gorilla breath and the big hat, the other one. He gives some pointers on what it takes to run a big fansite like bungie.org.

For the people who like to skip to the end of detective novels: no switch to phpBB planned. Sorry.

Buried near the bottom of an interview by Dean Takahashi over at the Mercury News interview with Microsoft's president of Entertainment and Devices Robbie Bach, comes the news that Microsoft will look for other studios to make the Halo film with, or give up the project.

Does it make sense for Microsoft to be in the movie business? It’s not what we do, nor would I anticipate us ever doing it. So it’s a different business with a different business model. We happen to have great intellectual property with Halo that could be made into a great movie. The No. 1 criteria for us is we have to be confident a great movie is going to be made. It doesn’t matter if Universal and Fox do it or somebody else does it. Frankly, if we didn’t think a good movie would be produced, we would rather have no movie.

Given the mix of nervousness and enthusiasm for the Halo film, is this good news-- that Microsoft will do it right, or not at all? Or bad news?

Five years ago today, Halo shipped to eager Bungie fans and the unsuspecting masses of Xbox early adopters around the world. To commemorate this (and whet your appetite for whatever big news is to come later) Frankie has put up an Anniversary Panel of game journalists and fansite editors (including HBO's own Louis Wu) to ask them about what they're looking forward to in Halo 3 and what their favorite things about Halo and Halo 2 are.

Mr Sprout over at the new Halo Wars fansite, Halo Wars Central, was able to get an interview with Dispraiser, the lead of Slipstream Productions that was working on the Halo-themed Halogen mod for Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour. Shortly before the announcement of Halo Wars for the Xbox 360 at the X06 event in Barcelona, Spain, Bungie contacted the Slipstream team with word that Microsoft's legal department wanted the team to stop working on their mod as they considered it an infringement of Microsoft's intellectual property, the Halo universe.

However, the team has not stopped working on the mod-- it just isn't Halo themed any more:

Well, it'd take the mystery out of it if I just said what our next project is, but a lot of our fans have found the secret message (rather crudely hidden) on our old homepage. I think if I just said what we were up to it'd take a lot of the fun out of making everybody find that message... But lemme just say, if you liked Halogen for more than just the Halo name, and you saw the work we put into our creations, and our faith to our motto (Semper Qualitas), then let me say that you won't be dissapointed.

For those still unclear on what actually happened with the cancellation of Halogen, read the interview.

• Next Generation: Game Trailers Hitch Up (mentions the H3 trailer)
• Marine Corps Times: Halo becomes literary blood-and-bone ballet (about the graphic novel)
• NG-Gamer: XCN Interviewed Peter Moore (Halo Wars, Bungie and Ensemble mentioned)
• Bungie.net: Halo 2 Vista Developer Diary Part Two (Vista is pretty and likes to kiss all the boys)
• Halo Wars.com: New forums for Suggestions and Haloverse Discussion.

The latter, it seems, not an actual Bungie Weekly Update; Frankie is having difficulty putting one up from his location and KP is at a loss for words.

The buzz has died down a bit, but there are still a few sites catching up with the X06 Halo Wars bombshell. The latest is the BBC's site, which quoted Bungie's Brian "SketchFactor" Jarrard as well as HBO's own fansite editor, Claude "Louis Wu" Errera.

As for why a Halo RTS by Ensemble, Sketch put it nicely:

"Halo started as an RTS. Would the Bungie team love to do one themselves? Possibly.

"We are not focused on that. We've got a lot of work to do on Halo 3 and a trilogy to finish."

As for Wu, he was cautiously optimistic. Or optimistically cautious, depending:

"The entire team has been working on Halo games since 1998 and they are probably tired of it. But there are still stories to tell."

I suppose if one works on Halo games long enough, Pimps at Sea starts to look like a really good idea.

• The Money Times: Halo Universe To Expand
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Peter Jackson to work on future 'Halo' installment
• Edmonton Sun: Jackson speaks, gamers listen
• Gaming Insider: Interactive's Attractions Grow For Moviemakers And Marketers
• GameDaily: The Future of Halo

Not a lot of new information there, although the Money Times article does reiterate that Jackson's Halo games will be separte from both the Halo film and Halo 3.