I know many of you are just waiting for the next installment in the Halo series to come out. You will have to wait some more as in the meantime, the game has to go through a couple of finishing stages, beta testing included.

As you've probably guessed it, becoming a beta tester for Halo 3 is not that easy. Actually, if you didn't wake up in time and signed-up when the books were opened at Microsoft, it's probably too late for you to test Halo 3.

Or you could take the other option and you could pay for a beta testing invitation. These suckers retail for US$ 60 and according to an ad in the latest issue of Gamepro (thanks Joystiq), Microsoft will start selling them as of February 20. But the most important thing is that once you purchase a golden ticket, you get a game called Crackdown. The fine print reads that this is a limited time offer, but I'm sure it won't last very long.

From what I can see, Microsoft proves to be very resourceful when it comes to making money. Usually, beta testers were paid to play a developing game and then state their opinion of it, report bugs and glitches in the game. But not with Microsoft, noooooo, they want cash. Think this over for a minute, Microsoft is charging you 60 bucks (the average amount of money for a finished title) to play one of their games and discover bugs and then report back to them. Practically, you are paying them to do their dirty work.