UPDATE: Thanks to sil3nttt3mplar, it appears that playing Halo 2 on LIVE in the past is enough to get you an e-mail, at least in his case. We’ll go out on a limb and say that’s a lot of Halo fans who are going to be covered if that extends further.

Just as the Halo: Reach hype machine cranks up another notch following the release of the Halo: Reach beta multiplayer trailer earlier this week, it transpires that if you are an original Xbox owner you might not need a copy of Halo 3: ODST to join in on May 3rd after all.

Credit for this should go to the fine folks over at Halo.Bungie.Org who received an e-mail this morning regarding the discontinuation of Xbox LIVE on the original Xbox, due to take place on April 15th. As well as an extra three months on their Gold membership and 400 Microsoft points, it seems like some subset of original Xbox Live members will be e-mailed an invite to the Reach beta as a thankyou.

Up until now, both Microsoft and Bungie have been steadfast in asserting that the Halo 3: ODST disc is the only way in. As HBO point out, it’s unlikely that anybody will be able to do anything now if they aren’t eligible for this already. Personally speaking, I thought the ODST only restriction would eventually yield in place of some form of hype building code give-aways and the like anyway so it could be things are starting to unravel in this regard as the beta draws closer.

If we get any more information, we’ll update this post. Stay tuned.