It seems that as soon as one piece of Halo news is submitted, another three follow suit almost instantly. So we bring you another Halo 3 roundup full of rumours, speculation and wishful thinking. Will we see the game in September? Is that really the Legendary box art? Take a peek after the jump for the latest news.

Update: The boxart is indeed real, high quality shots have been released by Microsoft. High res pictures after the jump.

Firstly, the packaging. Below you’ll see two images of what the packaging will look like come Fall, officially released by Microsoft.

Secondly, if you still haven’t got into the Beta via one of the many methods, head over to Germany where they are giving out access codes at Gamestop and EBGames. For €10, all you have to do is pre-order the game on their site. They take the €10 from your bank account and send you the Beta code, giving you the chance to play the Beta along with all the Crackdown owners. Google translation provides the usual Engrish response:

Book in each Gamestop EBGames net curtain within Germany halo in advance 3 and receive you an exclusive advance booking Package. With this you have to immerse the possibility first into the fascinating world from halo 3.

*The advance booking and associated handing of the advance booking Packages out take place only at persons by means of 18 years and against a pre-payment from 10 €uro.

Hopefully that makes sense (I’ve no idea what net curtains has to do with it), but they are basically saying that the game has to be pre-ordered at either of the two stores, you pay €10 and voila, you have the Beta code.

Thirdly and finally, a September release for the mega-hyped game is being whispered about. Shane Kim mentioned it in an interview with 1UP, whilst IGN have said that two separate, anonymous, sources have stated Bungie are pushing for a September release.

In the 1UP interview, Kim states:

“We don’t tell Bungie when they have to ship Halo 3. If they can get out before GTA4, they probably feel like that’s better, sort of like Xbox 360 coming out before PlayStation 3.”

[…]

“What happened in September of 2004? In September of 2004 we released Fable, Fable got big sales and then in November got big sales again. I just believe great titles can get the double bump and I think Halo 3 is going to be that.”

This is contrary to what people originally thought. Given that Halo and Halo 2 both shipped in November, the eleventh moth of the year made sense; just before Christmas, generate more sales of consoles. A September release could turn out to be more sneaky. It would get more consoles out in time for Christmas, meaning more people buy the games in the build-up months.

Jumping over to IGN with their two anonymous sources, A big-name publisher and well-established development house” [sic] revealed to them that since the game is such a big one, it is likely to sell more consoles in the build up to Christmas, and will beat the competition by doing this, since both Sony and Nintendo are likely to have a few big games coming out around Christmas time. Both sources were quick to point out that this is the plan, and although Bungie currently are on/ahead of schedule, anything could change.

That concludes this months roundup for all things Halo. The release date seems almost too good to be true, given that the Beta still isn’t available for mass testing yet. However the artwork is definitely real, since they were officially released by Microsoft today, so perhaps a September release isn’t as unrealistic as originally thought. Germans have struck it lucky and can obtain the Beta with relative ease, so lucky them!

But when?

Thanks to detroit adam, owee and nofear360 for submitting.