After counting down 20 through 11 in part 1 of our biggest stories of 2007, we know present you with our top 10 news stories of the year.

10. Bungie Leaves Microsoft Game Studios

Microsoft might tell you that Xbox's success is based on much more than Halo, and to some extent that's true, but let's face it... the Xbox 360 would not be where it is today without the massive hysteria and sales momentum that each Halo release provides. It's with great surprise then that we all learned that Bungie was leaving Microsoft back in October. Bungie's desire to create new IP and develop games other than Halo is completely understandable, but how much their departure will hurt Microsoft remains unclear.

Although Bungie has said that right now their focus is on Xbox 360 and only Xbox 360, at some point in the future you never know what might happen. The fact that Microsoft let Bungie leave in that sense is somewhat perplexing. It's not as if they're stacked with plenty of great first-party devs.

9. GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann Gets the Axe

The world will probably never know for sure whether former GameSpot editorial director Jeff Gerstmann was fired for his Kane & Lynch review, due to advertising pressure. Naturally GameSpot denies the allegations but many (most?) gamers will continue to be very skeptical not just of GameSpot but of all enthusiast press. It's for this reason really that the news blew up so quickly after word first got out.

The ramifications for game journalism also go quite deep, which is why we selected Gerstmann as one of our Persons of the Year for at least remaining true to his editorial integrity. Our Media Coverage expert Kyle Orland also did an excellent job in summing up the major points.

8. PS3 Sales Finally See Spike

Ever since the console's launch last year, Sony's PS3 has been held back by its ridiculously expensive price tag of $599. Even at $499, most consumers simply wouldn't bite. Sony's pricing schemes demonstrated in 2007 that yes, consumers are still very much price sensitive. Sure, at the time it was arguable that $500 was a bargain for a good Blu-ray player that also happened to play high-end video games, but Sony's target audience – the 120 million PS2 owners – are simply not going to spend that much. The result was that the PS3 lagged much behind Wii, Xbox 360 and even PS2 sales month after month. Now with a $399 price point and better software such as Uncharted and Ratchet & Clank, consumers are starting to take notice.

And while the PS3 is still outsold by the competition, it does seem to be closing the gap with Xbox 360. We won't know the December totals until next month, but in November the PS3 sold a much improved 466K units in the U.S. compared to 770K Xbox 360s.

7. Halo 3 Sells $300 Million in First Week

The brand power and mainstream recognition of the Halo franchise is truly incredible, especially considering it's still fairly new when compared to the likes of Mario or other properties. And yet somehow Microsoft has perfected the art of selling millions upon millions of copies, and in a short period to boot. Microsoft Corporate VP of Global Marketing Jeff Bell recently revealed that Halo 3 sold five million copies worldwide through November. To reach that sales total in just two-plus months is an astounding feat.

And the attach rate is incredible. 52 percent of all Xbox 360 owners in the U.S. have picked up the game so far. This has obviously helped to push console adoption and the momentum has clearly given Microsoft a boost this holiday season. The importance of Halo cannot be overstated.

Continue...