Actually it's nothing more than the Game Content Usage Rules...in action. When these were developed, people all thought they were focused on machinima. The truth is that while they do address machinima they also allow for a lot of other things. Mods like this are one of them.

The developers aren't selling the mod, they're not monetizing Microsoft's IP, they're just creating something to share their love of the Master Chief on a new platform...And no one is taking characters from PlayStation games (do they even have any games?) and putting them on our platform...

Everyone and their mother is totally getting sued and it's gonna be awesome.

Master Chief on PlayStation? Yep, we know... [DonkeyXote via Maxconsole]

Hey, Marky Mark. (Alright, got that out of the way early.)

Anyway, just wanted to shoot you a line saying I agree with most of what you said. I've said it in the past, people from sites I can't stand...have said it in the past, and we'll all say it in the future: gaming reviews are just not done correctly.

Unfortunately, I've yet to be able to find a reasonable and realistic answer for this. The fact of the matter is, reviews on most sites not pulling in the moneyz like IGN and GameSpot are driven by what publishers send out for review. They don't want you to experiment on a score (trust me, I found that out the hard way when I tried to do an entire review in a back-and-forth chat between me and a writer...).

The biggest problem, though, is just the gaming press and readers in general. If you review games and aren't a Top 3 or 4 site, no one will care unless you're on Metacritic or GameRankings. Unfortunately, to
get on those you need to follow the tired and cliched rules; 7ish = average, 10 = perfect, etc. I've tried to switch to 1 = game blows, 5 = it's okay, 10 = it's a lot of fun type model a few months back, but
guess what? Sites that keep reviews pulled me off until I "fixed it"

Until GameSpot or IGN radically changes how THEY review shit (and I don't mean 'hey let's add pretty pictures and only score in .5 increments!') no one will accept changes made on other sites, because
if the big ones don't do it, it doesn't count. How many people who read 1Up actually pay attention to their scoring system? You STILL see a ton of "OMG a 5!? A 5?! It's not a bad gaem!" posts.

/rant...

Brendon Lindsey
Editor-in-Chief
GamerNode.com

In a nutshell, their official response is that they do not provide details on manfacturing for their console. Here's the longer version, which sorta dances around the question.

Our plans for the Xbox version 1 platform remain unchanged from what we discussed last year at E3. We expect to continue to sell Xbox V1 consoles well into CY2006. We have more than 800 Xbox games in the portfolio today with many more being added in the coming years. Xbox V1 is a great value for consumers and we expect to continue to see good demand for the platform in CY2006. We don t provide details on our console manufacturing plans for either the Xbox version 1 or the Xbox 360.

The question is, what does support mean. We've heard that Microsoft isn't making in-house Xbox games anymore (though third parties will end up making tons for the year), and now there's rumors of no more manufactured Xboxen. You could argue that support just means that they are supporting the third party development of games.

It would be nice if Msoft went the route of Sony and come out with a XboxOne or some such, but I just don't see it happening.

The Xbox Is Dead? [Kotaku]