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Frank O'Connor talks a little bit about the next Halo project it's is now in the very early stages of development. Read below for more details. Source: CVG 343 Industries is gradually reallocating its teams to work on the next major Halo project, an executive at the studio has told CVG. Frank O'Connor, the franchise development director for Halo, said that "a lot of people at 343 are already prototyping ideas and software and art for future Halo products". He added: "I can't say more than that, but work on the game started actually before we launched Halo 4 and continues apace as we cycle staff through the team's vacation breaks. We're excited about the next game." O'Connor didn't explicitly state that the next game is specifically Halo 5, though Microsoft has already confirmed that it is building a second trilogy of Halo titles. Many within the 343 Industries studio are still working on post launch content for Halo 4, the latest being the curation of a major international Halo 4 tournament. It has also developed a plot-led series of co-op games called Spartan Ops, which has been widely praised by critics. A second season of the co-op mode, however, remains up in the air. "Spartan Ops season 2 is yet to be decided, we're looking at how the first season does," said O'Connor. "We got such great responses from [live-action web series] Forward Unto Dawn and Spartan Ops that we're pretty happy with it and we're learning a lot of really interesting stuff for the future," he added. "You are going to see a spectrum of Halo support though the next year and beyond." View full article

Source: CVG Microsoft Game Studios Vancouver is taking on scores of new staff as it begins to work on a next generation games franchise. The studio, which has been rebranded as Black Tusk, is expected to double its headcount to 110 development workers by the end of the year. Black Tusk studio manager Mike Crump says the team is "working on Microsoft's next big entertainment franchise". "We're not working on an existing franchise, we're looking to build the next Halo here, for example, which is really exciting," Crump told regional newspaper The Vancouver Sun. "We are building something from the ground up," he added. According to its official website, "Black Tusk Studios is dedicated to creating immersive, AAA games that push the limits of Microsoft's entertainment platforms." In May, the online CV of an art director at the studio seemingly let slip that the team was working on "a core AAA shooter experience using Kinect". View full article

Here we have another small insider for Halo 5, again mot much is revealed as it is still in very early stages. Read the article below for details and a couple of questions answered by 343 Industries franchide development director Frank O'connor. Source: Product Reviews. There are some things you’ve got to ask when in the middle of an interview, and in respect of the Halo 4 launch and the future of this franchise, it had to be details about Halo 5 and Xbox 720 that an interviewer would try and find segments of information. This is exactly what happened when Brier Dudley performed an interview with Halo development director at 343 Industries, Frank O’Connor, and asked about Halo 5. From the answers given above you can pretty much count on a Halo 5 arriving at some point, unless Halo 4 is a complete disaster, and the fact that it will be crucial to the the Xbox 720 launch. You can read the full interview in this article, which delivers some interesting information but certainly lacks the finer details we’d all want to know about Xbox 720. The interviewer had been digging for juicy details and they would’ve been hoping for something to slip out during questioning. View full article

Here we have another small insider for Halo 5, again mot much is revealed as it is still in very early stages. Read the article below for details and a couple of questions answered by 343 Industries franchide development director Frank O'connor. Source: Product Reviews. There are some things you’ve got to ask when in the middle of an interview, and in respect of the Halo 4 launch and the future of this franchise, it had to be details about Halo 5 and Xbox 720 that an interviewer would try and find segments of information. This is exactly what happened when Brier Dudley performed an interview with Halo development director at 343 Industries, Frank O’Connor, and asked about Halo 5. From the answers given above you can pretty much count on a Halo 5 arriving at some point, unless Halo 4 is a complete disaster, and the fact that it will be crucial to the the Xbox 720 launch. You can read the full interview in this article, which delivers some interesting information but certainly lacks the finer details we’d all want to know about Xbox 720. The interviewer had been digging for juicy details and they would’ve been hoping for something to slip out during questioning. This post has been promoted to an article

There have been talks discussing what halo 5's story will be, obviously they aren't going to into all details about it yet but some interesting things have been discussed about the next story and also about it being on the next gen console. Read the article below for more details. Credit to Lil Dog for finding this. Source: Examiner "Halo 4" brought Master Chief back in a fitting way this holiday season, but this is only the beginning for what's still to come from the series and on next-generation systems. According to a report from Product Reviews on Thursday, apparently people are in favor of seeing the next few installments on next-generation platforms. "We could simply see 'Halo 4': Next-gen land with improved graphics for the Xbox 720 at an event next year, but we’d favor something totally new in the form of 'Halo 5' with some major improvements in physics and graphics, which would be the bonus for the second and third games in this trilogy if they launch on the Xbox 720. "If 'Halo 5' hasn’t been worked on this year then launching it next year might bring something with limited work done, so again this is why we’d prefer to see a 'Halo 5' more thought-out with a release date in 2014 on the next-gen Xbox," the report stated. It went on to discuss how the next installment of the series could perhaps explain more about how Master Chief came to be. "Some of the ideas we’ve seen for the 'Halo 5' story include the possibility of an episode in the theme of “Search for Spock“, which could see Master Chief leave Earth looking for Cortana, although we also hear that a lot of fans want to see how the Spartans were created and how they were broke to make them a Spartan. "This would also deliver a lot more insight into how MC had been created, and what process he had to go through," the report stated. View full article

It has been reported that there may be two versions of the next gen xbox. I was not able to embed the video here but here is a link to the video and article Source: IGN Article and video: http://uk.ign.com/ar...f-the-next-xbox View full article

It's been said 343 Industries are looking to hire people with MMO experience. Could this mean a future Halo game will be an MMO game? Read the article below for more details. Source: Gamespot Microsoft has put out a call for staffers with massively multiplayer online game development experience to join 343 Industries to work on future Halo projects. Two job listings at 343 Industries were posted yesterday, both for software development engineers who will work on "building the next generation of backend services to power Halo 4 and our new game saga." These job listings follow additional requisitions posted last week that indicated 343 Industries was staffing up for mystery "incubation projects." A Microsoft representative declined to comment. If Microsoft is building a Halo MMO, it will not be the first time the company has done so. The Microsoft-owned (and now defunct) Ensemble Studios spent three years on a Halo MMORPG codenamed Titan that reportedly held a $90 million budget before it was canceled in 2007. Microsoft shipped Halo 4 earlier this month to a warm critical reception and day-one sales of $220 million. Halo 5 and Halo 6 have been confirmed as part of the Reclaimer Trilogy, though platforms for these games have not been revealed. Job listings from July suggest 343 Industries is at work on a Halo game for a next-generation platform. Microsoft will reportedly have its next Xbox on store shelves during the back half of 2013. View full article

Here is a little insider of the nex gen xbox read the article below for details. Soucre: CVG Xbox World has used its penultimate issue to publish an 8-page feature containing "everything we know" about Microsoft's next-gen console plans. The mag has good form when it comes to next-gen Xbox leaks, having revealed in January Microsoft's plans for augmented reality, directional sound, and a four-player, finger-tracking Kinect, all of which were later confirmed in the now infamous leaked planning document in June. Editor in chief Dan Dawkins told CVG: "Xbox World has been at the cutting edge of Durango coverage for over 12 months. Unless something really dramatic changes, everything we reveal in our penultimate issue will be revealed long before E3 in June." According to the mag's final 'exposé', the next-gen Xbox - which it speculates is likely to be called simply "Xbox" - will introduce Kinect 2.0, use Blu-ray discs and feature directional audio, a TV output AND input, 'innovative controller' and - at a later stage of the console's life - AR glasses. Current codename 'Durango' dev kits boast a CPU with "four hardware cores, each divided into four logical cores" and an impressive 8GB of RAM, XBW reports. Xbox World has used the Microsoft leaks and industry sources to come up with a 3D mock-up of what it expects the next-gen Xbox to look like. "We built ours with the same glossy face and patented VapourMG magnesium alloy Microsoft uses for its Surface tablet, and modelled the silver band after its new 'Wedge' touch keyboard and flexible Arc Touch mouse," it writes. "The future will be black, sharp and curved." To read the full 8-page feature, buy the latest issue of Xbox World online or on Apple Newsstand here (UK) or here (US). PSM3 features an equally large feature on PlayStation 4 and you can buy that on iOS here (UK) or here (US). View full article

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The Halo bulletin. Read below for more details Source: Halo Waypoint Over the past few days, babies were born, presidents were elected, and games were released—one of which just happened to be Halo 4. To say we’ve been overwhelmed by the response to our game would be an understatement. We’re humbled by your feedback and blown away by how many of you are spending significant amounts of time traversing our virtual battlefields. Here is a teeny-tiny peek into our day one numbers: More people played Halo 4 in the first 24 hours than any other Halo launch day in history. We’ll be sharing more details on Monday, but that should whet your appetite for the hard stats that are coming. Thank you for playing our game and stay tuned for additional updates, because we have some amazing things planned for the future of Halo 4. Midnight Madness It was a very surreal moment when the clock struck midnight on November 6. A day almost four years in the making, a single tick of the clock marked the occasion as stores around the world began releasing Halo 4 into the wild. From a to Jen Taylor and Steve Downes dual wielding Sharpies and smiles, over 10,000 midnight launch events around the world played host to a variety of different festivities, making the launch of Halo 4 a night to remember. Check out this pictorial recap showing how your fellow community members celebrated the release of Halo 4. The vast majority of 343 attended a launch event, and we had a blast celebrating the release of our game with you. We hope you had a good time, too! Halo 4 Housekeeping While the launch of Halo 4 went off without a hitch for the majority of you, a small percentage of players are experiencing a few different issues. We are tracking these issues and providing regular updates in the following forum thread: Issues being investigated. Please utilize that thread for reporting any and all problems you may be experiencing (we also have a Halo 4 FAQ, so check to see if your issue has been covered there first). We kindly ask that you utilize that thread for actual issues with the game. While we absolutely care that you think Cortana’s thighs are too large, that is not the appropriate place to make that post. You know who you are. Here are a few of the more common questions (and their relevant answers) we’re seeing right now. Y U No have game manual?! In an effort to save the world (and by world, we of course mean trees), we created an in-depth online interactive guide. You can access that here: http://www.halowaypo...n-US/Halo4Guide. How does the install process for Disc 2 work? Disc 2 contains largely multiplayer content. You can put it in at any time, even before Disc 1, and install the content. You will get a slideshow, some music and a progress bar. After a few minutes, you can remove that disc and never deal with it again. Everything multiplayer, including Spartan Ops, Forge and Campaign can then be launched from Disc 1. My Disc 2 is failing to install. HELP! If you’re experiencing issues installing Disc 2 content, choose “Spartan Ops” or “War Games” in the menu. You will see a message saying you need to install the content. Please choose the “Download from Xbox LIVE” option. If you have done a partial install with Disc 2 (i.e., your last install was either corrupt or interrupted), delete the old package before attempting the reinstall process. You can delete the old package by following the below steps: 1. Go to the Xbox Dashboard 2. Go to the “Settings” tab 3. Select “System” 4. Select “Storage” 5. Select “All Devices” 6. Select “Games and Apps” 7. Select “Halo 4” from the list of games 8. Select “Spartan Ops Season 1.0” 9. Select “Delete” 10. Select “Yes” to confirm 11. After it deletes that package, select “War Games” from the list 12. Select “Delete” 13. Select “Yes” to confirm My Xbox crashes every time I try to go to Halo Waypoint from Halo 4. Fix it! You fix it! You can do that by deleting Halo Waypoint and reinstalling it. What’s up with the daily XP cap? The daily XP cap is intended to preserve the integrity of the progression system. In other words, it’s in place to provide an early gate from players running amok in their progression. When we launched, we had a bug where double XP tokens were being consumed even when you went over the cap. That has since been fixed. In the coming weeks, we will be monitoring how many players are hitting the cap so we can respond accordingly. Sometimes I see a different set of hoppers, and my SR gets set back to 0. Why does that happen? What you are seeing are “fallback hoppers”. When you enter this mode, you will see a UI notification. It shows up on the “Find Game” screen for War Games. In previous Halo titles, you’re dependent on the servers to get the information you needed for Matchmaing, and if they go down, you can’t play. Fallback hoppers are a new functionality for Halo 4, and they allow people to continue playing Halo 4 when there are server issues. In order to preserve the integrity of the online experience, there are some limitations to this functionality: • Reduced XP earn rate, counted as offline XP • Players in the fallback hopper cannot play with those that are using the regular server hoppers • Player customization is disabled (no armor, loadouts, emblem) Since the server isn’t actually available in fallback hopper mode, you’ll be missing functionality that the server provides. This includes: • Spartan Ops • File Share • Service Record • Commendations • Challenges • Double XP tokens You will automatically be switched to fallback hoppers if you fail to download a necessary file. You’ll remain in fallback hoppers for up to 10 minutes after the services return. When in this mode, it’s a good idea to relaunch the game on a regular basis, so you can reenter the regular hoppers as soon as they’re available. Now that we’re done with the housekeeping, we’d like to say that we hope your experience with Halo 4 has been nothing short of pleasurable. If that’s not the case, definitely let us know here. Next Week's Matchmaking Playlist Update As you read the above title, you’re probably thinking, “We get a Matchmaking update already?!” and the answer is yes, you do indeed get a Matchmaking update already. Welcome to Halo 4, Spartans! Halo 4 Matchmaking updates will occur on a more frequent basis than what you’re accustomed to with Reach. Instead of monthly updates, we will be providing weekly updates, with the goal being to provide fresh content on a regular basis. We will maintain a static set of playlists and feature one or two “rotational” playlists on top of that. We will be monitoring trends and statistics closely so we can react accordingly to your preferences and likes. For instance, if one of our rotational playlists consistently holds a higher population than one of our static playlists, we will consider swapping them out based on player demand. The process will be fluid and based on numbers, and we’re extremely excited about the benefits of our new approach. So, what brand new playlist do you get next week? You get everybody’s favorite “Boom, headshot!” game type. Oh yes, it’s time for SWAT! By the way, please excuse the sobbing you might be hearing right now. It’s Frankie, weeping his man-tears of joy. Now, on to the nitty-gritty of SWAT in Halo 4. We’ve carefully balanced the damage resistance to allow both the Battle Rifle and the DMR to compete against each other in SWAT. Another change is that we’ve removed the shield HUD; so combined with disabled radar and no ordnance, you get even more visibility during a match. Below are the exact number of shots it takes for each weapon to kill. • DMR – 3 bullets to the chest, 1 bullet to the head • Magnum – 3 bullets to the chest, 1 bullet to the head • BR – 7 bullets to the chest (this gun shoots three bullets in a burst, so the first bullet of the third burst will kill the player), 1 bullet to the head These are the maps that will appear in the SWAT playlist. • Haven • Adrift • Complex • Abandon • Solace Here are some strategies for those unfamiliar with the SWAT game type. • Aim for the head! • Use a DMR for long range encounters and a BR to sweep hallways. • A Magnum is more effective than melee at very close range because of its incredibly fast fire speed. • Use callouts with your teammates; communication allows you to work more efficiently as a team. • Pick up a DMR or BR off of an enemy. Having both weapons is a big advantage. • Learn the maps to keep your reticle at headshot level. And finally, here’s a preview of our planned settings. Mode SWAT Teams 4v4 Score to Win 600 [60 Kills] Loadout 1 DMR, Magnum Loadout 2 BR, Magnum Grenades Disabled Shields Disabled Damage Resistance .8 – Headshot = Instant kill Motion Tracker Off Infinite Ammo On Shield HUD Disabled Ordnance Disabled We hope you love SWAT in Halo 4. After you’ve had a chance to play it, be sure to visit the Matchmaking section of our forums to leave your feedback about this particular game type. See you next week, and thanks again for joining us on this amazing journey. We appreciate your support, more than you know. <3, bs angel View full article

Source - http://blogs.haloway...Bulletin-118... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46U5I8lEyOY&feature=g-all-lik View full article

Microsoft increasing USB drive space for Xbox 360 storage. Read below for more details Source: gameinformer.com In March 2010, Microsoft allowed users to connect USB and hard drive devices to the console but only allowed a maximum storage space of 16GB. The new dashboard update this fall has increased the size to 32GB. "The more our customers use their profile and download digital content, the larger the file size necessary to store that content and move it between consoles gets," a Microsoft spokesperson said. "Therefore we increased the size of the memory to enable our customers to take more of their Xbox profile with them on the go." This story was first reported by Joystiq. View full article

343 Industries promised weekly Spartan Ops episodes and it's sticking to that promise. Episode 2 will be out on Monday. Read below for more details Source: Computerandvideogames.com Spartan Ops: Episode Two, which contains five new missions and an accompanying new CG cinematic, will be available for free via Xbox Live next Monday, November 12 at 11am GMT (3am Pacific). We've got a teaser trailer for you here, and below that, some blurb on what to expect from events in Episode 2 (left until last in case you're on a super-stringent spoiler blackout). http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TByBdJAUoD4 This week on Halo 4: Spartan Ops -- The mysterious artifact recovered from Requiem takes control of vital systems on board the UNSC Infinity, forcing the Spartans of Crimson and Majestic back down to the planet to look for a way to free the ship. Commander Lasky and the UNSC need you, Spartan...get back in the game! View full article