14 DAY TRIAL // The latest Halo news is that the Westminster council didn't allow a midnight launch of the latest title in the series, scheduled for a September 26 release. It turns out that the huge number of fans that will be present at the launch is the main reason for this decision. Some sort of riot is feared and no one wants to see chaos on the streets of London, as the game gets ready to surface.
Of course, the Council has every reason to be worried as the crowd will block traffic probably till next day stalling the people who will try to go to work. Everyone expects a bigger crowd than that created by the PS3 launch, in March and I hope we won't see any violent incidents happening. There are always a couple of troublemakers, who, crazed by the queue exit the store after purchasing the game/console and tear it to pieces frustrating the other people in line. This can also turn into a beating, as Halo fans don't kid when it comes to their favorite title.
Since the midnight launch was cancelled, people will be able to buy the last Halo game in the trilogy at the normal opening hours. Like the people who waited for the iPhone launch in the US, I imagine that a few fanatics have already bought tents in order to camp out of the first game store that launches Halo. London will surely have a busy schedule this month, as there's a chance that Steve Jobs will launch the iPhone today during Apple's Conference, while next week the release of Halo 3 is scheduled.
I can only think of two other phenomena that followed the same path: the launch of most Harry Potter books and the launch of the Nintendo Wii. Will Halo 3's release surpass the popularity and number of attendants of those events?