incorrect, microsoft has publishing rights to the first 2 but has to renew the deal which is up to epic, epic owns the universe of gears of war. Microsoft however owns halo entirely and it will never be on playstation unless MS leaves the console business.

I would be very surprised if the GOW franchise ever left being Xbox only for consoles. Microsoft did a great job of promoting the game, and has made both companies a load of cash.

"I would expect to hear more in oh say a weeks time at Leipzig. The rumors is that Microsoft plans to use that convention as a major propaganda victory with over twenty major game announcements. They are also supposedly going to unveil a preview of the first expansion pack for GTA 4 at the event. Which is due to be released in the first week of December.

Before anyone asks no I am not going to provide links to the rumors I am alluding to. They are posted on dark forums that I happen to be a member of, and not only are these forums locked, but every member has confidentiality. So it is technically impossible and ethically reprehensible. "

Microsoft isn't even having a press conference. Where exactly are they going to do this?

Please...where in your mind do you think that MS is going to let Gears get away? At least they are publishing their baby unlike Sony whom are NOT publishing MGS.Kojima kept the game with Sony out of loyalty, while Konami was pressuring him to make the game multiplat. MS and Epic are in good with each other. If they tried to run away (which I highly doubt), Microsoft would try to buy them out.

Halo 3.5 confirmed

If this free update turns out to be basically Halo 3.5....AWESOME.

I'm sorry but more weapons, costumes and battle grounds are a plus for me. 3.5 or not. Hopefully they will introduce new vehicles as well.

99.999% chance that it will cost money

I'm hoping for some smaller, arena style maps, along with far more features for customizing gametypes and hopefully weapons. Some extra vehicles and weapons would be nice to, buts thats gravy for me.

However, given what Bungie has said about COD4 I'd say its safe to assume that they would duplicate some of the things in that game, like leveling. 

not a bad thing at all.

This update will be substantial i feel if it was going to be announced at E3.

Bungie have got me excited, i'm sure they will not fail to deliver!

It is not what they were announcing at E3.  Here is the weekly update where they mention the big September update.  And the autoupdate.

AU Deuce

Last week I mentioned that there was a second Autoupdate coming to Halo 3 and that I'd talk about it this week.

Mostly invisible to players are a mess of backend changes that continue to pump more information to us about behaviors (naughty and nice), tendencies and general smoothing of issues underneath Halo 3’s hood that we weren’t thrilled with.

Much more visible to the players is some new functionality coming to Halo 3’s Experience system.

As it stands in Halo 3, Experience is collected into a single bucket which then uses your highest skill in a ranked playlist to give you your “Rank.” We’re adding new Playlist Ratings to Halo 3 Matchmaking.

Before I break down how things are changing here’s what is NOT changing:

• We are not resetting your “Skill.” Your Trueskill value will not change.
• We’re not resetting your current EXP. Your total EXP will still be displayed in your Service Record and that Rank will still be displayed in your Service Record.

However, at the Playlist level, things are changing noticeably.

While your total experience will still continue to climb in your Service Record, when AU2 goes live, we are enabling individual Experience ratings in each playlist. Playlist Ratings are based on how much experience you’ve accrued in a given Playlist. We’ll be basing your rating in a given playlist off of this value. When AU2 is released, we’ll begin tracking your experience per playlist, in that respect, everyone begins fresh. These new Playlist emblems will be familiar to Halo 3 players, but they have received a light graphical pass in game to distinguish Playlist Ratings from your Overall Rating.

In the simplest terms this means that becoming a General in Team Slayer is no longer dependent on reaching Level 50 and acquiring a certain number of total experience points. Via Playlist Ratings, players can reach General in as many playlists as they want .The currency powering these new Playlist Ratings is Experience.

Here's an example of how the Playlist Progression system could appear on Bungie.net. You can see the Progress bar beneath the name of the playlist as well as the parenthetical denotation of whether or not a playlist is Social or Ranked.

Under this system, however, players will have individual Ratings in each playlist and they’ll see a graphical treatment of that here on Bungie.net and they’ll see their current status for the playlist that they are in. In custom games, the Rating on a player’s Service Record will be the icon that other players see.

**UPDATE**

Here are some quick and dirty user questions on the Playlist Ratings from the Internet:

Posted by: Da Kr3w 4893
Can shishka or someone PLEASE clear up this new ranking system? I am honestly very confused.
1. Will each playlist have a seperate rank?
2. When the update goes live, when I go into a playlist, willl my rank show as a recruit?
3. Do you still have to be a 50 to be a general?

1. Yes. Ranked and Social lists each have their own ranks.
2. When you enter a playlist for the first time after AU2 you will be a Recruit in that playlist. In a Ranked playlist your SKILL number will still show.
3. To be a General on your SERVICE RECORD you must still be a 50 in a playlist, that is your Overall Rank. At the playlist level you can reach General from gaining Experience. Skill number is not required.

Toadie1979 asks: Explain to me how a General now could be a Gunnery Sgt. in one playlist is fair to others in there? I guess I'll wait till it goes live to make up my mind, but right now in theory, this is a horrible idea. I guess it'll even itself out after a few weeks, but MM is going to suck till it does.

Actually, we'll still be matching by Skill value the same way we have all along. At the playlist level, you'll still be matched against similarly skilled players, we're not resetting those numbers. We're adding a new metric for you to track your progress in a given playlist. If you're a 44 in Ranked Team Slayer, you'll still be a 44 and your 44 will still display. You will just be a level 44 Recruit in Team Slayer. After a whole bunch of games you may be a 44 General in Team Slayer.

Rank at the Playlist level is no longer contingent on the numerical "skill" value (the one to fifty). But Skill is still being used to determine who you will face because we want the matches to be as fair as possible.

Shishka’s Matchmaking August Playlist Update

Bring us home, Shishka.

Matchmaking changes for August, 2008:

Ranked

Team Objective

• ADDED Oddball
• ADDED King of the Hill
• REMOVED Ghost Town from symmetrical map variants

 Team Doubles

• ADDED Oddball
• ADDED King of the Hill
• ADDED 2 Flag on the Pit
• ADDED 1 Flag on Blackout

 Ranked Big Team Battle

• “Heavy” map variants added to Slayer rotation
• Standoff Heavy modified for more insanity
• ADDED Sandtrap Heavy

 DLC

 DLC Slayer

• Increased weighting on Cold Storage

Hardcore

 MLG

• REMOVED MLG Blackout

 Double EXP Weekends (In order of appearance)

• Legendary Brawl (Ranked)
• Grifball
• Team Snipers
• Living Dead

 You may be thinking to yourself “Hey, that’s a pretty short change list.” While a lot of the changes done this month were backend things that players will never notice, you would be right to think that August’s changes feel very minimal. The reason for this is that we’ve been focused on preparing a larger series of changes to Matchmaking for September. Much larger.

Much, much larger.

No, really. It’s huge. You should see how giddy Luke gets when I talk about the tentative plan.

************************************************************************

And since it is a change to Matchmaking, I would assume it is going to be free.  I think you guys are blowing this autoupdate out of proportions.