Bungie is working on a new Halo title, Microsoft has confirmed.

Don Mattrick, senior VP of Microsoft Interactive Entertainment, was addressing the absense of the franchise in Microsoft's Monday E3 press conference during an interview with MTV when he mentioned the new development.

Firstly, Mattrick was quick to squash any worries about the no-show of the upcoming Halo Wars in the conference, simply saying it was so full with new content news, any announcement on the series wasn't needed to get gamers excited.

He went on to say that announcements on the RTS game would be made nearer to its release, and also that a new title was currently being worked on by developers, Bungie. And no, it's not anything to do with Halo Wars or the Peter Jackson Halo project we've heard whispers about either.

This news comes after Bungie recently announced that they had hoped to reveal a new project at E3 but its publisher decided against it.

In an open letter published on Bungie's website and signed by Harold Ryan, the company's president, he explained that Bungie hoped to unveil its new project soon and apologised to fans for the delay.

"For the last several months, we've been building toward a reveal of something exciting that Bungie is working on. We were looking forward to sharing that with our fan community during the week of E3. However, those plans were just changed by our publisher," it said.

"We realise that many of our fans are disappointed by this turn of events; members of the Bungie team share that disappointment."

More news, of course, as and when we get it.

>> News - Halo Wars gets early 2009 release date
>> Via - Gamesindustry.biz