Xbox 360 Halo 3 Phase Two Is Over
by Joel Barish

Crushing news for Xbox 360 gamers today -- Phase Two of the public beta for Halo 3 is kaput. They've already received the requisite 13,333 gamers, and now registration is closed.
Here's the official notice from Microsoft and Bungie:
Greetings Halo Nation and thanks for your interest in the Halo 3 multiplayer public beta.
Phase Two of registration is now closed. If you were one of the first 13,333 gamers to meet the "Rule of Three" program eligibility requirements* you would have received an email notification in the last 24 hours.
For those of you that didn't make it, don't worry. There is still one more way to secure entry into the Halo 3 multiplayer public beta: purchase a copy of the upcoming game CrackdownTM before the Halo 3 beta period.
Crackdown hits store shelves in North America on February 20th, and will be specially marked with a Halo 3 sticker before the beta begins. Pre-order Crackdown today from our retail partners below.


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The Halo 3 Beta was an intermediate build of the multiplayer functionality of Halo 3. It was first released to selected members of the public on May 11, 2007, and its purpose was to collect information and feedback from the millions of playtest games played through the multiplayer beta to refine Bungie Studio's final multiplayer product and to advertise Halo 3.Over the four weeks of the Beta, 820,000 unique users clocked up over 12 million hours of play - the equivalent of a single person playing Halo 3 for 1,400 years (Xbox 360 world magazine).