Software pirates may want to reconsider downloading that leaked copy of Halo Reach in advance of the game’s September 14 release date. Microsoft is issuing permanent Xbox Live bans for anyone it catches playing unauthorized versions of Reach.

Xbox Live’s director of policy and enforcement Stephen Toulouse commented on his Twitter (via Joystiq), “As with all unauthorized play on Xbox LIVE, anyone playing any unauthorized title runs the risk of account permaban and console,” adding, “Legit store bought copy runs no risk of ban. Key word: UNAUTHORIZED. We have ways of knowing.”

Don’t want your console permanently exiled from Xbox Live? Then don’t pirate games, dummy. And have a little patience; September ain’t that far away.

Halo fans will soon be able to remotely pay tribute to Halo Reach’s Noble Team with the help of a giant robot arm starting next week (via Wired)

Microsoft is launching the Remember Reach site next week, which allow users to view a monument of light honoring Reach’s Spartans. In the game, Noble Team goes missing shortly after the fall of one of humanity’s last colonies.

Fans will be able to help construct the monument by logging onto Facebook, picking a point of light and watching as the robot plots it on an image. The robot is a Kuka KR 140, which is also used to assemble automobiles.

There will be 54,000 points of light to choose from, but they will slowly fade so that new visitors can replot them. Remember Reach goes live next week, and the game will be out September 14.

Halo: Reach will give fans of the series a look at its universe — and a lot more Spartans — before the events of the original Halo: Combat Evolved took place, but according to Bungie community director Brian Jarrard, they planned at one point to make Halo 4 instead.

“Even before the idea to build a game based around Reach came about, a lot of other concepts were explored, up to and including a proper ‘Halo 4,’ where Master Chief was going to wake up from cryo-sleep and we were going to tell that story,” Jarrard said to MTV multiplayer. Spoiler warning if you never beat Halo 3, but for those whose memories are only a little hazy, the game ended with Master Chief encasing himself into cryo-sleep as he drifted aimlessly with Cortana in space on half of a destroyed frigate.

As for why they decided against another direct sequel, Jarrard said that “it just wasn’t as interesting to the team to just pick up where that left off and all the baggage that came with it.” Still, considering this will be Bungie’s last Halo (as they’re moving on to a mysterious new franchise in a publishing partnership with Activision), Jarrard also says Reach will tie into the trilogy nicely. “We don’t want to open up a whole bunch of doors that we’re not going to close,” he said. “By the end of this, it’s all going to come to a nice, neat finish, and if people want to then go play the Halo trilogy, I think they’ll have a better understanding of what’s going on, but it’s not required at all.”

Halo: Reach is set for release on September 14.

Sometimes telling a loved one goodbye for the last time is just too painful, especially after spending the better part of the last decade at one another’s side. Such is the case for a handful Halo 2 fans who’ve refused to let go of their first-person shooter of choice, even after Microsoft pulled the plug on the original Xbox Live roughly two weeks ago.
It turns out these intrepid gamers have been able to remain connected to the old Live service as long as they don’t shut down their consoles or lose their internet connection. As a result, there are still around 13 people still playing Halo 2 online. The initial group of holdouts started much, much larger, but — as tends to happen when you leave your system on for weeks at a time — many have dropped out due to their consoles overheating, random disconnects, and other issues.

A fellow going by the name of Joe Campbell decided to chronicle this stalwart bunch of Halo players in a thread on the official Bungie forums. You’ll find his updated list of remaining Halo 2 users inside, as well as links to any livestreams that may still be running.

“We will keep playing until we are all forcibly removed,” Campbell writes. “It could be by Microsoft, Bungie, our Xbox’s overheating, or just lagging out. Not for competition, not for a prize, but for the love, and memory of Halo 2.”

With the release of a batch of Halo: Reach screenshots came the usual amount of obsessive fan analysis, which in turn produced a lot of intriguing rumors — a lot of intriguing rumors that are turning out to be wrong. In Bungie’s latest weekly update, they engaged in a round of “Halo: Reach Mythbusters,” shooting down some of the bigger rumors floating around the net. And the biggest: that Halo: Reach would use Natal motion controls.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the targeting reticule — typically in the middle of the screen for a first-person shooter — is mysteriously off to the left, leading many to wonder if it’s because you can aim the reticule independently using some form of motion controls. The answer is much less elaborate: “Truth be told, it’s just a good ole fashioned bug. Bug #15163 to be exact,” Bungie writes. “Halo: Reach is NOT a Natal title and is being developed expressly with the traditional Xbox 360 controller in mind.”

This screenshot alone created a couple of other rumors, including that the HUD will in fact be yellow (evidently it won’t), and more intriguingly, that a portion of the screen was pixelated (area is circled in the image above) because Bungie was hiding something super top secret. Here we will quote Bungie’s explanation in full, because it’s the sort of awesomely jerk-ish behavior we really respect:
Truth: Here’s how it really went down:
Sketch: Dammit, I really like this screenshot and it’s the only passable first person asset we have right now, but it’s got all this extra UI text in it that’s not in campaign.

Urk: Just pixelate it. Everybody will think we’re hiding super top secret stuff.

Sketch: lol

Stalwart Halo 3 fans who, for whatever reason, skipped out on Halo 3 ODST will soon have a shot at the pseudo-sequel’s exclusive multiplayer maps. Microsoft has announced a February 2 release date for the three-pack of ODST multiplayer stages.

Included in the upcoming add-on are “Heretic,” a remake of Halo 2’s “Midship” level; “Citadel,” a map set in a symmetrical, confining Forerunner structure; and a deserted harbor called “Longshore.” The full “Mythic Map Pack 2″ bundle will set players back 800 Microsoft points, or about $10.