An article published earlier today by the Associated Press has revealed that Halo: Reach will launch worldwide on September 14th. The only exception to this is Japan, where the launch is postponed a single day due to a national holiday.
The statement further revealed that over 2.7 million players participated in the multiplayer beta that concluded last week, which is almost three-and-a-half times as much as the number of users that participated in the Halo 3 beta in 2007. In total, more than 1.1 billion kills had been registered during the 18 days the beta was available and players logged a total playtime in excess of 16 million hours.
Halo: Reach is set to be the final game to be developed in the series by Bungie, but the organization has announced that it will continue supporting the game with map-packs and updates for the foreseeable future. Future developments in the Halo franchise will be overseen by the Microsoft-owned 343 Industries studio.