Quick! Check your e-mail: Bungie issuing Halo 3 beta registrations this week

For those of you who decided to roll the dice and sign up for Halo 3 beta registration last year, your time has come. According to word over at the official site, those who have been selected will be receiving e-mail notifications the week of January 22-26. My oh my — that’s today! Start refreshing your inbox, folks.

Bungie also confirms how the beta passes that ship with Crackdown will work:

When the Halo 3 multiplayer beta surfaces in spring 2007, those owners of Crackdown that have access to an Xbox 360 Pro console or an Xbox 360 Core console with hard drive and a valid Xbox Live Gold subscription simply need to load their copy of Crackdown into Xbox 360 and use the disc as a key to download the beta from Xbox Live Marketplace and join the battle in Halo 3 multiplayer.

So it’s official — the disc is the key. And for those of you who were thinking about returning/selling your copy of Crackdown immediately, it looks like you’ll be holding on to your discs until late March. Cue the sound of a toilet flushing, as the chances of finding a used copy of Crackdown in February circle down the drain.