Gaming legend Hironobu Sakaguchi (responsible for a few games you may have heard of called Final Fantasy) has announced that his Mistwalker Game Studio will create and develop role-playing games exclusively for what's finally been revealed as "the next-generation Xbox video game platform." Sounds awesome! Wonder if Bungie will make anything for it?

Mr. Sakaguchi's company has committed to creating two exclusive RPG titles to be published by Microsoft Game Studios.

[url=http://www.aussiexbox.com.au/template_sec_games.cfm?page_id=25263234110031018&se_id=135&site_id=11003]Aussie Xbox[/url], held a magnificent charity bash in the land down under, to help raise money for the victims of the Tsunami Disaster, so good fun was had for a good cause on the 12th of February at Microsoft's Sydney HQ.

The event was a Halo 2 tournament, with prizes donated by Logitech, Netgear and of course Xbox. You can read the full results and see pictures from the event at [url=http://www.aussiexbox.com.au/template_sec_games.cfm?page_id=25263234110031018&se_id=135&site_id=11003]Aussie Xbox[/url], and even get a feel for Antipodean Xbox antics.

A few new polls and plenty of old ones are still waiting for your feedback over in our [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/topics.aspx?forumID=8]Voting Booth[/url]. Share your opinions on everything from potential playlist adjustments to your favorite weapons. Rock the vote and be heard!

The [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/topics.aspx?forumID=8]Voting Booth[/url] is filling up with loads of polls and chances for you to share your opinions with the Bungie team. A few new polls have been added that deal with the Xbox Live Matchmaking playlists: How do you feel about [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=2181647]Random Weapons[/url] ? What are your thoughts on [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=2181745]Single Weapon Variants[/url] ? (i.e. snipers only, shotguns, etc..) Do you like [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=2192093]Random Vehicles?[/url] Chime in on these and many other thought provoking topics over the Voting Booth! And, for even more chances to share your opinions and help further improve the Live experience, check out this latest post over in the [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=2192259&viewreplies=true]Optimatch Forum[/url]. The question of the week - what starting weapons would you change if you could?

Sorry about the extended downtime. Stats are back up. It took a while longer than we though it would, but moving that many gigabytes of data takes a while. We also had a bit of problem bringing everything online, causing a small false start. Sorry about that.

Your games played during the downtime should be all caught up as well. Thanks for being patient, those of you who were.

[b]Update:[/b] Due to the sheer size of our database, things are taking much longer than anticipated. At this time, we expect stats to remain offline until Tuesday morning. We apologize for the downtime as we upgrade our storage capacity for archived and old stat info. We'll keep you posted as the upgrade continues.

Note that your stats are still being tracked and will update when stats are returned to normal service. This process can take a few hours, however.

This Sunday is the Superbowl, but we'll still be working to make Halo 2 better. On Sunday evening at around 10pm, the Halo 2 Stats display on bungie.net will be offline for approximately 24 hours. This only affects the web site display, not the collection of your game data or your Xbox Live play.

See, the problem is you guys play lots of Halo 2. So, our stats database needs to have some upgrades done to it to make sure it can handle the load. Bear in mind that your stats will still be collected as you play, they just won't be processed for viewing on the web site until the maintenance period is completed. We apologize for the downtime, hopefully we'll complete the maintenance faster than 24 hours.

[url=http://www.bungiestore.com/]The Bungie Store[/url] is having a post-holiday blowout, and selling some of the discontinued Halo items at bargain prices, including the Titanium Eclipse Tumbler – a swanky-looking Halo 2 beverage receptacle, the game character fridge magnets, and the Battle Rifle and Dual SMG notepads.

There are other bargains there too including metal Luggage Tags and our Holiday Gift Card set, which will of course work just fine next holiday season. So go [url=http://www.bungiestore.com/]check it out[/url].

The awards season continues and we're very grateful to our peers for selecting Halo 2 to win four of the six categories in which it was nominated by [url=http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-8/winners.asp]The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences[/url] a group largely composed of developers and publishers.

Lots of awards in there for you to read about, so [url=http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-8/winners.asp]go check it out.[/url] Oh, and special congrats to Katamari Damacy, an office favorite.