Since I've been spending way too much time playing Halo 3, a lot of news has slipped by the last couple days:

Kotaku notes a new Xbox 360 bundle that includes Halo 3, destined for Europe.

TTL says Halo 3 is blam!ing awesome.

Wired interviews Frankie about Bungie's independence and its future. This is actually one of the better interviews out there on the subject, and while there are still things Bungie won't talk about, there's less evasiveness here.

This I can't let pass without comment:

FO: Microsoft Game Studios is our publisher for two projects that we've announced, and beyond that I can't talk about the details of the deal, because we are a privately held LLC, but on the other hand Microsoft is a publicly held company, so they might be able to talk about those details in more depth than we can.

That's a bit of spin there. Bungie being private doesn't prevent them from talking about this deal; that's a choice they've made. Microsoft being public doesn't enable them to talk about this deal. What really should be said here is that, due to Microsoft being a publicly held company beholden to its shareholders, it might be compelled to talk about this deal, whereas Bungie cannot.

TeamXbox interviews Frankie about Bungie's future relationship with the Halo franchise, and what it's like to have other developers work on it.

BusinessWeek interviews Brian "SketchFactor" Jarrard on what Bungie plans to do next.

bs angel in a blog entry over at hawtymcbloggy posts a few useful netiquette tips for Social playlists on matchmaking.

Speaking of matchmaking, Bungie has rolled out its first playlist update, extending Big Team Battle back to 16 players, and adjusting the balance of shotty sniper games, the upshot of which being, you'll get less shotty snipers, and if you do get shotty snipers, and you veto shotty snipers, the next game you get will not be shotty snipers. Me? I love shotty snipers.

Microsoft has updated its content usage rules for machinima makers. The changes are, to be kind, mild, and consists primarily of apologies for leaving things in, blamed on Microsoft's lawyers.

The vague prohibition against "offensive" content is still there.

The music and sound clause now essentially says you're on your own to secure those rights, instead of flat-out telling you that you can't have them, which is good. It also says Halo music is okay to use due to an agreement with Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori. No word on sound effects, though.

The clause about "lost chapters" or backstory now says you can do this, but if you do you're granting Microsoft permission to use what you make, royalty-free, worldwide, without crediting you. Not that they actually want to do that, but they have to make sure machinima makers can't sue Microsoft for coincidental similarities. Not that Microsoft would lose those suits, but just going to court costs money.

Stories from HBO were used in compiling this report.