With 2 spinoff games, multiple novels and an expanding range of figurines planned, gamers are starting to fear that Halo may face the fate of Medal Of Honor and Command &Conquer series.

But Microsoft insists that its strategy is to "explore not exploit" the Halo universe.

"The Halo universe is really, really big now," said Frank O'Connor, Microsoft Games content manger. "Literally the Halo games have only covered one year; a couple of months within a year in fact. "

"We have a really detailed story bible, we do really have it all planned out. There are so many areas of the universe to explore; the real challenge is picking which is the most exciting area for people. Is it UNSC Marines fighting alongside Spartans against the Covenant? Or is it what happens next after Master Chief's appearance in Halo 3?"

"We have a well defined, carefully orchestrated, properly planned universe to explore not exploit," he added. "And that's the tricky part: what are the things people want to do? We have to pick things that people want. That's what you see with the range of McFarlane toys - people want their armour permutation."

 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 has been released exactly 4 months ago and until last week a lot of users suffered from copy protection related problems. To fix those problems, Ubisoft opted to release a copy-protection-removing patch for the game.

This is a bit unusual (especially with Ubisoft's history of restrictive copy right usage) but is it newsworthy? Only if it turns out that Ubisoft used an illegal no-cd crack written by famous cracking group, RELOADED, as a fix for their own game.

The file in question was released by Ubisoft as a fix for the Direct2Drive version of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. When the file is checked using a hex editor, RELOADED's signature is clearly visible in the file's header.

Ubisoft has since pulled off the file and said that " the matter is being thoroughly investigated by senior tech support managers". Ubisoft UK Community Manager added that "Needless to say we do not support or condone copy protection circumvention methods like this and this particular incident is in direct conflict with Ubisoft's policies."