May 26^th, 2005 (12:14pm) - Last week at E3, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates told reporters that Halo 3, the next installment in the critically acclaimed series by Bungie Studios, would be ready in the Spring of 2006, just in time to compete with Sony’s PlayStation 3 video game console. Now, Robbie Bach, Microsoft’s senior vice president and chief Xbox officer, says that may not be the case.

While doing a cover story for last week’s Time magazine, Bill Gates asked readers to picture a day when "Sony launches and they walk right into Halo 3." While tying in with the hype generated by the Xbox 360’s showing at E3, Bill’s comments must have generated a positive buzz regarding future console prospects from Microsoft.

With E3 over, Robbie Bach decided that it was time to put the Microsoft Chairman in this place. Said Bach, "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."

The more surprising comment from Bach reads, "We haven’t announced anything on what Bungie is doing or where we’re going with the future of the ’Halo’ franchise." With that comment, doubt could be rising as to whether or not there will be a Halo 3.

As usual, GamersMark will have the latest when it comes to the future of Halo.