AfterTek

For all the fanfare about its new video-game console, Microsoft was decidedly quiet last week about one of the biggest questions in the industry: the potential timing of a third installment in its blockbuster “Halo” video-game franchise. Everyone but Bill Gates was quiet about it.

In a cover story published last week in Time magazine, the Microsoft chief software architect was quoted as saying that the company would have “Halo 3″ ready by the time Sony releases its PlayStation 3 next year. Time magazine described him as “radiant with bloodlust” over the prospect of using the exclusive Microsoft game to foil the Xbox 360’s rival.  “It’s perfect,” Gates was quoted as saying. “The day Sony launches, and they walk right into Halo 3.”  Now does that settle the quesion that’s been on everyone’s mind.  Unfortunately the answer is still up in the air.

When asked about the reported comment last week, Microsoft’s Xbox chief was not willing to go nearly as far as Gates. Robbie Bach, Microsoft senior vice president and chief Xbox officer, would not say when the company’s internal Bungie Studios would have the next installment in the “Halo” franchise prepared for release.

“We haven’t announced anything on what Bungie is doing or where we’re going with the future of the ‘Halo’ franchise,” Bach said. “With all respect to Bill, I don’t run Bungie’s studio, and neither does he. We’ll work with the Bungie guys and let people know” when they have something to announce.

Even though Gates is the boss, this was the second time in recent weeks that he appeared to say more than the Xbox team might have wanted him to say. Leading up to the Xbox 360 unveiling, Gates let it slip during a speech that the console would ship this year, which was not exactly a surprise at that point, but still something that the Xbox team had been trying to keep secret until the unveiling.

If Microsoft does attempt to use “Halo 3″ to blunt Sony, the timing of the PlayStation 3 release could possibly complicate matters. Sony had widely been expected to ship the new console sometime next year, as much as a year behind the scheduled release of the Xbox 360 later this year.

However last week, Sony gave a more precise time frame, saying it would come out with the PlayStation 3 in the spring of next year. That would be about six months after the Xbox 360’s scheduled worldwide release later this year.  Bach did point out that the details of Sony’s launch are still somewhat vague. “We’ll see what spring means from Sony,” he said. “Spring might mean in one country some place. Spring’s a long time frame, and whether they’ll be in the United States in the spring, who knows?”