Halo Archives – Page 2 of 2

Microsoft files complaint over another fake Halo 4 Beta site [UPDATED]

[Update 2 on March 7, 2012:. Microsoft Corporation won the rights to Halo4Beta.net. On March 6, 2012, a single-member panel ordered the domain name transferred from Edward Lee (the respondent) to Microsoft (the complainant).]

[Update 1 on March 5, 2012:. Microsoft is going after another phony Halo 4 Beta site. A complaint has now been filed (Case Number: 1432610) with the National Arbitration Forum over Halo4Beta.biz (screenshot) The domain name is owned by a resident of Illinois according to Whois records. I’ve reached out the owner for more information and will update this post if I hear back.]

Original story on January 28, 2012:. Nearly two weeks ago, David Ellis of 343 Industries, the company that is developing Halo 4, warned Halo fans through Twitter that if you see a site claiming to allow you to sign up for a Halo 4 beta it’s a fake.

The site in question was hosted at Halo4beta.net (pictured above), and now Microsoft’s legal team is taking action by going after the domain name.

A complaint (Case No. 1426106) has officially been filed with the National Arbitration Forum.

Apparently wanting to avoid legal troubles after gaming sites went abuzz with David Ellis’ warning, the operator of Halo4beta.net took the website down, but that’s not going to be enough for Microsoft.

Microsoft can fully expect to have the National Arbitration Panel order the name be transferred, in what should be an open-and-shut case.

Stay tuned as I’ll be posting the details of the decision as soon as they’re available, likely no more than a few weeks from now.

Halo 4 has a holiday season 2012 release date.

Last June, Microsoft acquired the domain name Halo4.com for an undisclosed amount of cash, rather than filing a domain dispute. When I asked the seller about the selling price/negotiations with Microsoft, the seller told me via e-mail, “The only term of the agreement that I can disclose is that I can’t disclose any terms of the agreement.”

Discussion: GameSpot, Kotaku, Joystiq, GameSpot, Hard OCP, Game Informer, Eurogamer.net, VentureBeat, Blue’s News, ITProPortal, Game Rant, VG24/7, Digital Spy, Piki Geek, Strategy Informer, The Escapist, Neowin.net, WebProNews and 411mania

Microsoft launching a Halo Monument for its Combat Evolved remake [UPDATED]

In mid-October I wrote about Microsoft registering the domain names HaloLivingMonument.com and HaloLivingMonument.net.

I suggested that Microsoft might be launching a website having to do with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, which is set to be released on November 15th for the Xbox 360.

Well, today Microsoft temporarily put a website together (pictured above) on the web address halolivingmonument.com for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, but it’s currently not operational.

None of the links are active and the Windows Live sign in in the top right is disabled.

I took a screen shot before the site was taken down by Microsoft, which occurred while I was writing this post.

It appears the website is part of the online marketing campaign for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary as I suspected, similar to the Remember Reach website it released for Halo: Reach. Remember Reach had visitors create a “living monument” of lights to honor Noble team members.

While details are limited, according to the source code pictured below, it appears visitors will enter their birth date when entering the site in order to view the multimedia. The same way it works for Remember Reach. .

Apparently, Microsoft has been working on the site at halomonument.cloudapp.net (which I also noticed in the source code), but neither halolivingmonument.com nor halomonument.cloudapp.net resolve to a web page.

The look-and-feel of the site is much like the product page for the game and has the exact same background.

With the game’s release only 2 weeks away, one would imagine the site will be back online within days, if not sooner.

[Update 1, Nov. 2, 5:00am EST: Halolivingmonument.com has been officially confirmed. A commenter on the Joystiq article who goes by MrGreenCastle points to The Halo Fan of The Decade Contest, where one winner will receive a chance to be immortalized. All entrants will have their photos uploaded to the interactive Halo living monument beginning on November 13.]

[Update 2, Nov. 3: Microsoft has now posted a teaser page on HaloLivingMonument.com that displays nothing more than the launch date of 11-13-11, as shown in the picture below.]

[Update 3, Nov. 13: HaloLivingMonument.com has gone live.]

Discussion: Joystiq