Popular opinion and analyst speculation tells us that releasing anything near the street date of Halo 3 is commercial suicide. But one man disagrees. Or at least hopes otherwise.

Midway employee and Blacksite: Area 51 lead campaign designer Ricardo Bare tells CVG that Halo 3 may actually bolster sales of his alien-slaying first-person shooter, not cannibalize it. Logic follows:

Whenever you go and see a really bad ass action movie like X-Men, it just makes you want to go and see Spider-Man 3, right? You usually want more of the same. Some people subscribe to the fact that when something really huge comes out, it helps the other two or three really good games that also come out, because you want more FPS action.

Sure, two or three other first-person shooters might get a sales boost, if from nothing other than the retail traffic, but what if there are, say, eight shooters arriving in September. What then? Or maybe Bare is referring to PS3 and PC sales, which could benefit from a result of FPS-envy. Michael McWhertor

Halo 3 will help Blacksite sell, says dev [CVG]