Earlier this week, Bungie was conspicuous in its absence from E3. The developer issued a letter on its website, promising the company is working on something exciting, but that plans for an unveiling at E3 were shelved at the last minute by their publisher. That publisher turned out to be Microsoft, who revealed to the LA Times that the move was done in order to cut the company's press conference from 150 minutes to an hour and a half.

"We had an embarrassment of riches," said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of Microsoft's Xbox games business. "We felt we could do this game more justice with a more dedicated event."

Bungie's next project, which is confirmed to be Halo related, missed E3 entirely, as did the exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV episodic content promised for this year. Mattrick was upbeat about this, saying, "Two big kahunas were left out of the show, and we were still able to deliver a strong performance."