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Let's just be honest for a second: Microsoft publishing a major entry in either the Halo or Gears franchises in any month other than September or November seems unlikely; that time of year is just made for massive marketing campaigns and huge sales numbers. And it's almost tradition at this point.

With that, CVG report today -- having heard from retail sources in the UK -- that Bungie's Halo: Reach allegedly has a "worldwide" date of September 14th, which would put it months before Treyarch's new Call of Duty, as well as slotting it nicely around the likes of Medal of Honor, Fallout: New Vegas and more.

According to the unnamed "senior trade source," this "gives Halo enough time to maximise sales before CoD arrives. Xbox 360 is pretty synonymous with Call Of Duty, so it makes commercial sense for Microsoft and Activision to agree both games won't come out too close to one another."

That is kind of obvious, to be fair. For what it's worth, a September date has been floating around for a little while now, so who knows. Microsoft have not commented on the rumored date, but something tells me when they do it will be the usual "we don't comment on rumor and speculation" line. Hopefuly we will get an official launch date at E3, if not before. Maybe to close off the May beta test?

The creators of Ratchet & Clank, Resistance and Spyro might soon be enjoying time on Xbox 360, according to anonymous sources whispering secrets to IGN at GDC 2010.

The site reports that Insomniac Games -- who are merely a close Sony partner, but not an owned first-party studio -- are working on secret, unannounced multiplatform software which remains unannounced and secret. Insomniac are without a doubt prepping Resistance 3, but as for what the future holds beyond that, that's anybody's guess. Sony do hold the rights to Ratchet and Resistance, though, so it won't be anything set in either of those series.

Rumor had it last year that the studio had a multiplatform survival horror shooter in the works, one that didn't even have a final name yet, but it was never confirmed or denied. Curious. E3, maybe?

Insomniac's president cited the report as rumor and speculaton. In addition, the company's community manager expressed his thoughts on NeoGAF: "But c'mon, didn't we just deal with this rumor like two months ago? And a few months before that? And so on?"

Guitar Hero 6 is coming this fall, with its developers at Neversoft to lose their jobs shortly after, it rumors come true. But while the game remains unannounced still, that's not stopping involved artists from dropping hot scoops.

The latest news on GH6 comes from KISS frontman Gene Simmons, who has, quite openly, revealed that he's "the voice" of the game. What that means, who knows. Good to know, I guess. Now you'll be aware who is speaking to you this fall when someone asks who that disembodied voice is during your Guitar Hero parties.

A close-knit development studio losing its leader (or leaders) to shenanigans is, usually, a situation that eventually has additional fallout. We saw it with Team Ninja after Itagaki quit, with handfuls of employees walking out, and now it rumor has it there would be numerous staffers calling it qits at Infinity ward.. were it not for the fact that Activision owes them money.

Kotaku reported this week that, according to sources, "Activision is delaying paying Infinity Ward employees their royalties" from Modern Warfare 2 -- a matter that was central to the lawsuit against the publisher filed by former bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella. The duo alleged that Activision fired them earlier this month "in the hopes that by doing so, it could avoid paying them what they had rightfully earned, and seize control of the Infinity Ward studio, to which Activision had previously granted creative control over all Modern Warfare-branded games and had, apparently, decided it no longer wanted to live with."

The first of these royalty payments was reportedly due on March 31st. The sources speaking with Kotaku claim the rest of the studio are currently awaiting their royalties -- a total significantly more than what their actual salaries were -- but that the publisher "continues to delay" the payments "in order to keep them at the company. The morale at Infinity Ward is reportedly extremely low."

Damn. Now of course, this hasn't been confirmed or denied by Activision, or the Activision execs heading up IW now, at this time, so we'll have to see how this plays out.

[Update]: Activision state that it "doesn't comment on industry rumor or speculation."