So that's the show folks. Unfortunately we have decided that it is time to close up the Xcast and Xcast Online. This is going to be the last post here. I would like to take this time to thank you for all of your support over the past four years. The Xcast has been a huge part of my life and I wouldn't change it's impact for the world. Each and every one of you reading this has had a major impact on my life. When I started the show and blog as a Sophomore in high school I thought it might last a month or two, man was I wrong. I never thought I would be flying to Seattle for PAX, going to Los Angeles, making it to #100 episodes, making friends in California from right here in New York and much more. I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. Now I would like to thank the staff members that have passed through here over the years. If it wasn't for the staff this entire site would not have been able to function, I couldn't have done it by myself. Remember to support Phil in his new endeavour over at Would You Kindly as well, he has done tremendous amounts of work for the Xcast and I can't thank him enough. A big thank you goes out to all the communities, community leaders, publishers, developers and other industry affiliates who have supported us as well, you guys have been awesome and I look forward to working with everyone in the future. No matter what I do I cannot express how grateful I am for each and every one of you reading this. I'm going to miss it here but this isn't it, this is only a new beginning.

Sincerely,

Frank Romano

It's a funny thing, life. It doesn't always play out the way you intended it to. Things happen, plans change, kinks get thrown into a well-oiled machine's gears.

As you may (or may not) have heard already, we have made the incredibly difficult decision to wind down Xcast Online -- a decision that we toiled over for months, but ended up feeling it was for the best. More on that in detail very shortly. Fret not though, for like the phoenix, we shall rise again.

So, what's next?

Xcast Online will be taking a temporary hiatus, as we are building up to an announcement that should drop sometime later this week. Feel free to speculate, but this is quite possibly, in our eyes anyway, the biggest news to come in regards to the site and its future in quite some time. Okay, it's the biggest.

We appreciate your patience. Stay tuned.

Crackdown 2 unleashes orb-collecting awesome and 4-player co-op shenanigans next Tuesday (having cloked 20 hours in the full game, we can confirm it's awesome), but you don't have to limit your time with Pacific City's infamous Agency to just the sequel.

Xbox LIVE Arcade's 4J Studios-developed port of Rare's Perfect Dark is getting a nifty little unlockable bonus -- Agent 4, a new character skin for the game's multiplayer, if you have a retail Crackdown 2 save file on your console. This comes on the heel of Crackdown 2's recent demo, which allows players to unlock 10 Achievements, to be officially counted upon playing the full game.

Way to cross-promote, guys.

A good friend of ours, Harmonix's senior designer Dan Teasdale, has departed the Rock Band developer this week.

Writing on his blog, Teasdale says that his career "has been driven by a secret achievement grind, hidden relatively successfully by the fun of making games."

"This was great until I started working at Harmonix. Working on something like Rock Band basically allows you to auto-complete most of the achievements on your life list. "Make a game with unique controllers", "Make a game I'm not sick of after making it", "Make a game that makes first parties do anything to help you" and "Make a game that hits the zeitgeist" all got annihilated in the course of a few years."

He says that some the "fun of crafting new experiences" put everything else in the background as he moved up the staff position ladder, and he wants to have a more hands-on development influence again. "So, with Rock Band 3 now design complete and on the final path to 0 bugs, GM and distribution, I decided to do that. Today's my last day in the office at Harmonix."

As of tomorrow, Teasdale will be setting up shop at Austin, TX-based Twisted Pixel, developers of games like XBLA's 'Splosion Man, and the upcoming Comic Jumper. He'll be working on a "ridiculously cool new project. It's the holy grail of game design positions - I'll get to contribute and help drive the direction of a well funded and supported new title with a close knit superteam, while at the same time being hands on and able to directly impact all aspects of the game."

We wish you the best of luck, Dan. Thanks for all of your hard work.

What's going on within Microsoft Game Studios these days? Contradictions over Xbox Kinect titles, and whether or not they share any technology ideas from Lionhead's mysterious Milo & Kate project, keep popping up just days after executives speak on the subject.

Shortly after Aaron Greenberg's (eventually corrected) comments on the status of Milo & Kate, Microsoft's Phil Spencer stated that "...the technology is stuff that we're still incubating back in the studios... you start to see some of those ideas around Milo also showing up in other places, so [Kinect launch title] Kinectimals is actually done at Frontier. ... when you see the interaction between the girl and the animal on stage you can see similarities to stuff we were working on with Milo, so we start with experiments and they may turn into games themselves.

Spencer added, "...understand that those investments in creative research show up in many places."

Yesterday, chairman of Frontier Developments, David Braben, spoke with OXM, debunking those claims. The exec said, "Kinectimals has been in development since before we saw Milo. It is built using Frontier's own technology shared with other Frontier games in development, and ideas evolved from earlier games like [2004 PS2 title] 'Dog's Life'."

"There has not been any involvement in the technology or design by Lionhead. Milo and Kate is a completely separate (and intriguing) development from Lionhead."

Alrighty, then. That's all squared away. Right? Not so, it seems. Apparently Peter Molyneux knows something we, and Frontier, do not. He assures that Kinectimals, as well as "other games" for Kinect indeed use bits of Milo's revolutionary tech. In an interview with Spong, the Lionhead boss proclaims "...there's some of the technology in the animals game and the sports is actually fed from Milo already. Little tiny bits of technology are scattered in other games."

Okay. That settles it. But then, uhh...

Microsoft's internal Halo studio, 343 Industries, has been staffing up for some time, building a solid team to help create the next experiences in the franchise once the development reins are handed over from Bungie, following the launch of Halo: Reach in September. After that, it's up to the new blood -- including the likes of Gearbox's Corrinne Yu, Kojima Production's Ryan Payton, and even Bungie's Frank O'Connor -- to tackle what's next. Probably Halo 4 for the next Xbox, and maybe Halo Wars 2.

Job listings have quietly been posted over the last year on Microsoft's careers site, but this week they rolled out a dedicated page promoting the studio, and inciting fan speculation the web over.

"343 Industries is forging the future of Halo, expanding and building upon one of the most important and successful franchises in gaming history. Halo is a rich and exciting universe that encompasses AAA video games, New York Times best-selling novels, world-class animation and much, much more. Just you wait. 343 is set to revolutionize gaming and entertainment by putting the industry’s fiercest talent in one room and diving for cover. Come be part of the awesome."

Positions being sought range from character and environment artists, to mission designers, and software development engineers. Basically the whole kitchen sink, in terms of necessary folks. Nice to see they're actually getting to work on things. Bring the rain, guys.