Half-life August 5th?..Doom 3 ATI deal?

[Orin]

I was looking around at Gamespot.com and just saw this..

RUMOR #3: Half-Life 2 is only two weeks away from completion. Really. They mean it this time.

Source: Valve Software fan site hl2world.com.

The official story: E-mails to Valve PR director Doug Lombardi and the e-mail address on the post got no responses.

What we heard: On Tuesday, a frequent hl2world.com forum-poster and self-described "1337 d00d" started a thread with an audacious claim--that he personally had contacted Valve head Gabe Newell to ask about the progress of Half-Life 2. Less believable was the poster's claim that Newell wrote back and told him that, "At our current rate of find/fix bugs, we'll be down to zero bugs in 16 days." If true, that would mean that the infamously delayed shooter "might go gold at around the fifth of August." Normally, it would be easy to dismiss such posting to the overactive imagination of a PC gamer driven mad by the stranger-than-fiction story of Half-Life 2's development. However, the reputable news crew at Shacknews.com confirmed the story with Newell (who speaks to them regularly), all but legitimizing the story.

Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus, although whether Valve makes that deadline is a whole other matter...

RUMOR #2: Id Software has struck a deal with ATI to bundle Doom 3 with Radeon graphics cards.

Source: The raging hardware-heads at Rage3d.com.

The official story: "We're looking into this."--rep for Doom 3 publisher Activision; ATI had no comment.

What we heard: On Wednesday, trollers of the Rage3d.com forums got a bit of a shock--convincing (if blurry) evidence that Doom 3 will be bundled with one of ATI's Radeon GPUs. The proof came in the form of several low-quality cameraphone photos (pictured), allegedly taken inside an EB Games, of a poster bearing the likeness of Doom 3's space-marine hero. "Want Doom 3 free?" read the copy in large white letters, next to an image of an ATI Radeon card. According to the poster, the store staff accessed the EB database and said that they were "expecting 9600XT's and X800PR0's bundled with Doom 3 on August 3rd." While a picture is worth a thousand words, more doubts surrounded the rumor than the usual Photoshop-hoax-hypotheses. One, the poster lists his location as "Australia," raising the possibility it might be some sort of exclusively antipodean arrangement. Two, on Tuesday, id's John Carmack conducted a benchmark test with hardware site HardOCP, which resulted in Doom 3 performing best on an Nvidia 6800 Ultra, not a Radeon. Third, ATI already has a high-profile bundle deal with Half-Life 2--would it make sense for them to shell out big money for another one? Given its cutthroat struggle with Nvidia to be the top GPU-maker, the answer may well be "yes." But, fourth, this also could be a deal EB cooked up all on its own.

Bogus or not bogus?: Looks pretty authentic--probably not bogus

Got this from here:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/07...s_6103380.html

These may just be rumors..but then again..maybe not...

[l3illyl3ob]

HL2 being bug free in 16 days does NOT mean a release in 16 days, it means that it'll be ready to be marked gold and prepaired for shipping. I wouldn't be surprised to see another sept 30th date, if anything for the novelty.

And i don't get why anybody hasn't ever thought of this one about the doom 3 ati deal.... Since when has EB had ANYTHING to do with pc hardware? They don't sell it, from any store i've seen, real or internet. So why would EB make a deal with ATI? They don't deal in hardware!! If it was an all round deal with ID/Activision, why would they advertise that you can get the game free somewhere else, when its in their store? Putting that into account, this seems extremely unlikely.

[RF]

Yeah, and CS:S goes into BETA on August 10th. So I wouldnt be surprised to see it on the shelves sometime in september.

[Razor Blade]

>>"expecting 9600XT's and X800PR0's bundled with Doom 3 on August 3rd."

Wouldn't they rather bundle a 9800XT considering that card will even have troubles playing Doom 3, instead of an 9600XT I think the Doom3+ATI thing is bullcrap.

[sxamiga]

Last I heard ID was courting Nvidia concerning Doom 3. This is because the 6800 cards finally shipped and ID liked what it saw. ATI or Nvidia, who cares?
Doom 3 will, more than likely, run at top performance on either x800 or 6800 cards just fine. We'll know soon, August 3rd or 4th Doom 3 comes to GameStop, I've got it on reserve, and I've got a 6800GT card.
Half-Life 2?? Don't believe anything you hear about that one is my advice. I heard the same thing also and then later I heard there may be yet more delays that would push it back to the fall. My advice on this one? Don't believe it will be out until it is out and on store shelves.
sx/amiga

[Metalmurphy]

Well thats pretty obvious Anyway i saw this last week but its like they said! Complete doesnt mean released

[Modem1]

I hope that HL2 gets released at maybe early September. That'll give me a nice month to play with Doom III. PCGamer says that it takes about 20 hours to complete. And since I have afternoons off, it'll give me plenty of time to play some online gamin' after I beat the singleplayer.
- Modem

[RF]

Originally Posted by Razor Blade

>>"expecting 9600XT's and X800PR0's bundled with Doom 3 on August 3rd."

Wouldn't they rather bundle a 9800XT considering that card will even have troubles playing Doom 3, instead of an 9600XT I think the Doom3+ATI thing is bullcrap.

More or less to cover the mid-range part of the market. You cant forget to take their money aswell.