So according to last night's late Bungie update, Bungie and Microsoft have cleared a way to do a public beta of the next Halo game's multiplayer side next spring. They aren't announcing what that way is, but I'd pretty much guess that It'll be one of three ways: 1) Randomly from the forums 2) On the Official Xbox Magazine DVD 3) Publicly for XBox Live Gold members

If it's #1 - there will be a mass amount of people who get invites and then decide to Ebay their Xbox Live accounts, and there are enough crazy frenzied Halo players that would buy them. If its #2 - the magazine sells out nearly immediately (but this makes the magazine's publisher, Future US Inc., truck loads of money, with M$ probably seeing a bit of play from that). If its #3 - You'll see gold subscriptions shoot through the roof and people who already have gold membership will get a bit more for their buck. All of this being taken into account, there are reasons for and against all three, but because its public, I think #1 is far less likely, but I guess it depends on the scope they're going for too.

Ultimately the question that must be asked is : How many hoops are willing to jump through (and how much are you willing to spend) to play a beta of the new Halo game? Anyone else think maybe a channel in live to play limited betas of games would be cool? Would it be feasible? Would you pay for access to such an area of XBox Live and if so, how much ?

Found a story on this on the BBC page, check out this link.

"We can confirm that our fans will have an opportunity to play Halo 3 multiplayer over Xbox Live before the final game is available," wrote community manager Brian Jarrard on the Bungie website.

Is that Beta or Demo?

A beta version is to be released but as with new maps for Halo 2 will only be available for the 360. Doesn't mention any other restrictions though. (yet)