Trust me, there's never been a news story quite like this one.

A few days ago, during a 1UP podcast with EGM executive editor Shane Bettenhausen, he teased that he knew of "a big Microsoft first-party title that's been in the works for a very long time that people are very excited for sounds like it's being cancelled."

And thus, the hype was generated, and the search began.

Thanks to the investigative skills of GameSpot, a long trail of enquiries, questions, guesses has been laid out for us to admire, as they attempt to discover just what this mysterious title could be, and gaze jaws-opened at just how much impact a passing comment in a podcast by a random nobody from a sub-standard gaming magazine can generate.

Not surprisingly, Rare's upcoming Banjo Kazooie title was the first guess out the window. Even less surprisingly, it turned out to not be true.

"It's definitely not Banjo," an unnamed Rare employee informed GameSpot. "That said, I haven't heard these rumours internally, so it could all be hot air for all I know."

Looking for a more realistic choice, it makes sense that titles which have been a long time in production would be the most likely games to be cancelled.

Stand up Too Human and Alan Wake.

"It is definitely not Too Human," said a representative for Too Human.

"[This rumour] has nothing to do with Alan Wake..." a Remedy representative assured the fans on the official forums.

How about the illustrious Peter Molyneux? His games are notoriously famous for being delayed when his imagination starts running ahead of what's feasibly possible. "It's not Fable 2, I can tell you that much."

We're quickly running out of titles.

There's only major Microsoft title left that we can think of. Could it be Halo Wars, the real-time strategy spin-off of the biggest franchise on the planet? Not likely, and the developers only response was a picture of a man with a tinfoil hat, basically summing up exactly what we think about this whole thing.

So, what could this mysterious title be?
Is there any substance to this rumour at all?
Or was Bettenhausen just talking crap?

I think we can all safely guess that the third option is the most likely, but it's entertaining to see the internet up in such a roar about something so superficial and unsubstantiated, if nothing else.

Tags : Alan Wake : Banjo Kazooie : Fable 2 : Halo : halo 3 : Halo Wars : Lionhead Studios : microsoft : Molyneux : Shane Bettenhausen : Too Human

Comments

By: Evren On: 07:42 Nov 13th, 2007 Offline	Sounds like crap to me. Something to generate a whole load of hype to make people wonder.

By: Snake Plissken On: 08:13 Nov 13th, 2007 Offline	I'm going with most likely crap, no bodies from no name mags shouting stuff, sounds like an attempt to create gype so he will have something to make an interesting article out of.

By: boa On: 09:21 Nov 13th, 2007 Offline	Hype machine in overdrive... Sounds like it was fun for the people involved though ^^

By: Corrine On: 12:45 Nov 13th, 2007 Offline	There's nothing to substantiate this rumor. It's basically "I heard from a friend who heard it from a friend!" Hahaha. But it certainly is interesting, keep us updated, will you? <3

By: Dragonsoul On: 01:05 Nov 13th, 2007 Offline	laughs Sounds like hogwash to me. But it certainly is fun to watch the hype machine in action, now isn't it?