Halo Waypoint now live on Xbox Live

Starting Saturday, Nov. 7, Halo Waypoint will begin previewing new Halo content on Xbox Live. The new virtual home for all things Halo launches today on Xbox LIVE, and will be the “exclusive destination for full-episode previews of Halo Legends beginning Saturday, Nov. 7. Halo Waypoint promises daily updates featuring developer interviews, trailers and screenshots, exclusive video footage, community activities and the latest Halo news.

In addition, Halo Waypoint includes a career system that tracks players’ accomplishments across multiple Halo games and gives them new ways to show off their in game exploits. Players who participate in Halo Waypoint will be rewarded with a variety of Bungie-created Halo 3: ODST Avatar Awardables for attaining specific Achievements in the game. Rewards vary from T-shirts to full sets of ODST armor. These awardables are retroactive, so if players have already unlocked the requisite Achievements, the awards will be ready for them once they enlist in Halo Waypoint.

Turn on your Xbox 360 and log on to Xbox Live to learn more.

Halo 3, Battlefield 1943 tops on Xbox Live

Halo 3, Battlefield 1943, Halo 2 and RC-AirSim were the top games on Xbox Live according to the LIVE Activity report from Major Nelson for the week of July 20, 2009. Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty: world at War continued to take the top three spots for games played online, followed by Gears of War 2 and (my current favorite) Battlefield 1943.

Battlefield 1943 was also the top Xbox Live Arcade game for the week, beating out the physics based Splosion Man, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, Castle Crashers (which just won’t go away), and Worms 2: Armageddon.

Sane sh*t, different day for Xbox Originals: Halo 2 was at the top of the heap, followed by Star Wars: Battlefront 2, Counter-Strike, Fable and Splinter Cell Chaos.

Finally, RC-AirSim made its way back to the top of the Community Games list, beating out Fireworks HD, myFishtank, Kodu Game Lab and Gamerbots:Third-Robot Shooting. The complete list can be found after the break:

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Halo 3, Worms 2 dominate Xbox Live

For the week of June 29, 2009, Halo 3, Worms 2: Armageddon, Halo 2, and Kodu Game Lab were the top distraction on Xbox Live, based on games sold and unique users on Microsoft’s popular service. For the top Xbox 360 titles played for the week it was the usual suspects: Halo 3, Call of Duty: World at War, Call of duty 4, Gears of War 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV.

On the Arcade side of things, Xbox Live users seem to have fallen in love with the latest Worms game (which drove the first one up the charts last week, so no shock there), but are still very much in love with the new Magic The Gathering game and Castle Crashers. Castle Crashers just won’t fall out of the top five - The Behemoth said that they’ll be showing off their next game at Comic-Con. Original Xbox owners are still enamored with Halo 2 and Counter-Strike , while the Community Games are now being dominated by Microsoft’s handy dandy game building software for Xbox Live.

The full list of winners can be seen after the break.

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Halo Encyclopedia coming

For those who can’t get enough Halo information, DK Publishing has announced they are publishing the Halo Encyclopedia in 352 glorious full-color pages. The book is planned for a November 2009 release.

The press release at this point says the book will cover just the games. A call to the publisher has them scrambling to check if the books will be included as well, since the stories were sanctioned by Bungie and Microsoft. The forward of the encyclopedia will be written by Frank O’Connor, who left Bungie as content manager in May of last year to work at Microsoft and more closely with the Halo franchise.

We’ve had initial chats with DK to publish an excerpt or two of the encyclopedia as it gets closer to release, along with getting a few copies for a giveaway to our readers, so stay tuned.

Halo: The Board Game

Genius Products and B1 Games today announced that the board game based on Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie’s best-selling Halo, has shipped to retail outlets nationwide. The Halo board game features a modular board that can be reconfigured to create a different gameplay experiences, characters from the game as well as new characters (Kusunagi and The Prophet of Candor), fast-paced gameplay using simple rules, and elements plucked from Halo, Halo 2 and Halo 3.

In the game, players command armies of collectible character pieces (UNSC Marine and Covenant forces) for multiple levels of play including Heroic for faster casual play and Legendary for more strategic play. Fans can follow storylines that expand the Halo experience in Campaign mode or go head-to-head in interactive battle sequences with Slayer or Capture the Flag modes. The battle options are endless with future add-ons of new adventures, vehicles, characters and weapons to expand the experience.

In the game, players will command armies of three-dimensional collectible character pieces for multiple levels of play: Heroic for faster, more casual game play and Legendary for more strategic advanced gamers. Fans can follow storylines that expand the Halo experience in Campaign mode or go head-to-head in interactive battle sequences with Slayer or Capture the Flag modes. Future add-ons of new adventures, vehicles, characters and weapons to expand the experience are in the works as well.

Bungie: Pre-Owned Game Sales Hurt Halo

According to Bungie Audio Director, Marty O’Donnell, the pre-owned games market had “big” effect on sales of Halo. Speaking to to GameInustry.biz, O’Donnell said that smaller studios face a difficult future if they can’t get a return on their investment due to the sale of a pre-owned copy of a game. But in the very same breath he admits that he doesn’t actually know what that impact is - he just assumes it’s “big.”

O’Donnell is certainly not alone in his assertion that pre-owned games sales hurt overall sales of games: In an interview with GI.biz, David Braben, chairman of Frontier Developments, said that it is his “belief” that the pre-owned games market is “damaging” to single-player titles. In that interview he suggested an alternative rental system, involving the supply of rental discs to retailers at no cost in exchange for a percentage of a store’s rental profits.

 Jens Uwe Intat, EA’s European Publishing General Manager, in yet another interview with GI.biz, said that the company is trying to find ways to discourage pre-owned game sales by engaging the consumer beyond the initial purchase of a game.

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Gamertrainer.com Goes Live

Gamertrainer.com, a portal dedicated to helping players learn gaming skills training, announced the launch of its website and service today. The website serves all levels of gamers from novices to professionals and promises tips, guides and hourly private lessons provided by skilled instructors.

Participants that want some training book a training session by using the on-site calendar showing all the days and times available by game. Customers can book, purchase and complete a form describing exactly what they would like to learn and within hours they are contacted by their trainer.

Gamertrainer.com provides private training sessions and training gift certificates for both experienced and beginner gamers on all the major platforms (Xbox360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and PC) and a growing list of games including Battlefield: Bad Company, Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat, Guitar Hero III and Rock Band, Halo 2 and 3, Madden NFL 09, Rainbow Six Vegas 1 and 2, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and World of Warcraft.

It’s an interesting idea for delivering some unique service, for sure. Find out more about it including pricing, by visiting Gamertrainer.com.