XBOX

The breakup is official: Bungie and Microsoft have parted ways.

Via a press release that's being covered on every gaming site on the planet, as well as the BBC and other mainstream news sites, Bungie is now a privately held company in which Microsoft holds a minority stake.

Bungie will continue to develop Halo related titles for Microsoft, but as I previously mentioned, moving away to become a separate company once more frees Bungie to put all that talent to work for other platforms.

The rumour doing the round this morning is that Bungie and Microsoft are set to part ways. I can see a lot of reasons for both sides of the argument here, which makes it all equally possible.

Having just pushed Halo 3 out the door, Bungie have shown they can deliver a compelling, tight FPS. It may not be the best at any one thing (graphics, play style, weapons, etc.) but the over-all package is a consumate piece of work.

I'm not normally a huge fan of Microsoft's products - not by a long shot - but their entire foray into the world of consoles has been an interesting one. The original Xbox turned out to be a pretty decent system, with some great titles on it.

What really endears the Xbox to me, though, is it's hackability.

A whole range of modchips came out that really enchanced the abilities of what was an already impressive system. Having a hard drive and networking as standard was just too PC-like to be ignored, and the modding community rose to the challenge.

This may seem like heresy, I know. Tom saying not to buy a 360? Hear me out.

I rate the 360 very highly. It's a good piece of kit, at a good price, with some good titles. Microsoft are still the underdog and have none of the arrogance that comes with success - they're supportive of gaming centres and indepedant retailers, and they're pushing the 360 hard for pro-gaming.

By comparison, Sony are evil and snooty. They hate European gamers particularly, the consumer in general, and you'd sooner get a ski lesson from Satan than get Sony's help if you want their gear in your gaming centre.

On Thursday the 2nd of August there will be a special console day taking place at theaubergineroom.

For this day only starting at 5pm we'll be having up to 8 play matches of Halo 2, all going on in the centre.

Finally a chance to be able to shout directly at the person who just sniped you from across the map, instead of having to shout it down a headset.

To take part just show up on the night and join in for our usual prices.
For an extra special discount, if you bring along your own Xbox controller you'll get a special rate of £2 per hour.