Half-Life 2 Not On Xbox?

Thanks to Evil Avatar for pointing to a Puget Sound Business Journal story suggesting that Half-Life 2 may not come out for Xbox after all. This relatively obscure article has word from David Hufford of Microsoft that "As of now, Half-Life 2 is not going to be on the Xbox.. Valve is sending us mixed messages on that." Up to now, established sites such as Planet Half-Life have said of the sequel: "An Xbox port is very likely", but it looks like that may no longer be true. Update: 06/09 21:34 GMT by S : GameSpyDaily have got hold of Valve's Doug Lombardi, who is saying that Half-Life 2 is still planned for both PC and Xbox - it may be that either contract negotiations or simply misinformation is clouding the issue.

Comments

Inaccurate, strange information.

[Babbster]

First off, we have this:

If Microsoft ever had an advantage over Sony due to the built-in hard drive, that advantage may soon disappear.

The writer then goes on to describe the PSX, making that seem like it's going to contend directly with the Xbox because of it's built-in hard drive. Admittedly, he does mention that not every PS2 gamer will upgrade to the PSX but he doesn't make clear why it can never happen: Price. There's NO WAY Sony will release the PSX anywhere near the $200 and under price point of current consoles. The only people who are going to buy a PSX are those who a) want a TiVo-like device and/or b) don't already have a PS2. Even the hard drive add-on for the PS2 is never going to approach the 100% hard drive implementation of the Xbox because the majority of games aren't going to take real advantage of it before the PS2 fades in favor of the PS3.

He then hits us with this:

The old version of Xbox Live only allowed gamers to talk to one another in a central online portal area, but the new version enables them to communicate while actually playing games.

He's getting this backwards. The new functionality to be added to Xbox Live is apparently going to include the ability to chat via voice OUTSIDE of games. The voice communication capability within games has been present in Xbox Live from day one.

Finally, I would note that in regards to Half-Life 2, the author is quoting "a product manager in Microsoft's Xbox group," David Hufford. I don't know what Mr. Hufford's responsibilities are but if there was any firm announcement on there being no HL2 for the Xbox it seems logical that we would hear that either directly from Valve or from one of the "real" Xbox honchos like Jay Allard. Until we do, I wouldn't be surprised if the waffling is a result of financial wrangling between Valve and Microsoft - i.e., they may be looking for "Rockstar money" to get HL2 as an Xbox console exclusive.

In short, I think the author is stringing a lot of disparate facts (and nonfacts) together in order to bolster the hypothesis that Xbox is failing (the Xbox wasn't supposed to make money on its and MS has made this clear over and over again), and I'll wait for official word from Valve, Microsoft or both before worrying about whether or not HL2 hits the Xbox.

There's a very real limit

[apierson]

...to what a P3 700 w/ a GeForce 3/4 hybrid can handle. I wonder if all these Xbox owners anxiously awaiting Half-Life 2 for their console actually _saw_ the E3 footage and realized that any release of this game for the Xbox would be _horribly_ neutered compared to the PC version. The Xbox is a child now compared to even middle-end PC's.

Re:There's a very real limit

[Babbster]

Yes, and if graphics were the only concern then your snide, dismissive attitude would be understandable. But the first Half-Life's graphics weren't that groundbreaking even at the time it was released. What set it apart from other FPSs at the same time is that it belonged to that select group (System Shock, Deus Ex, Thief) that placed a premium on good single-player gameplay. Since most of us expect Half-Life 2 to follow in that mold, whether or not the game matches texture for texture, effect for effect, the PC version is quite beside the point.

I would further note that Doom 3's demoed graphics look even better than those of Half-Life 2 and yet Carmack is planning for what he believes will be a very good Xbox version.

Re:There's a very real limit

[Soulslayer]

Of course while a lot of what makes HL2 so neat is not related to the graphics, it does still require significantly more horsepower for those other features. AI and advanced physics models do not necessarily come cheap in terms of processing.

As to graphics, if you've seen HL2 and Doom 3 running at high resolution in person I think you'd realize that HL2s engine actually looks better than Doom 3's. At the very least it's equivalent. And Carmack has stated that there may eventually be a Doom 3 port, but he has not stated that "Doom 3 will look the same on an Xbox as it will on a PC". Concessions will have to be made. There's nothing terribly wrong with the Xbox, but it is essentially an old specialized PC running on 3 generations old graphics hardware.

Re:Half-Life is a 3D Video Game SDK - and a game t

[Babbster]

That's not why it sold well initially. The reason it was immediately successful (and it was) was that it was an excellent single-player game. Over time it has had longevity beyond that of most single-player first-person shooters because of modifications, but it would have been successful even if there had never been a single mod.

Re:Consoles Will Come

[Soulslayer]

The PS2 has a fairly unique architecture, but he GameCube is a Power PC with an ATI Radeon 8500 (ish) graphics chipset. The Cube is not supposed to be a big pain to write for.

However it is highly unlikely that HL2 could be ported to ANY of the consoles without major reduction in capabilities. Remember the Xbox is about equivalent to a 1GHz Celeron running a GeForce 3 Reference (pre-Ti) chipset. (its actual clock is 700Mhz but it gains some speed advantage due to some mainboard and memory enchancements)

HL2's absolute minimum requirements (with nearly every detail setting lowered all the way) has been rumored to be in the 900Mhz GeForce 3 range. To play at anything remotely similar to the detail level of the E3 demonstration is going to require systems 2-3 times as powerful.

It's time for a new generation of console players to learn what the last one did. Consoles will always fall behind top end PCs in terms of graphics performance. And given the delay between new console products you will generally have one year in which you can attempt to claim your console is more powerful than any PC when it comes to games (you'd be wrong, but you can get away with it) followed by 2-3 years of being obviously less advanced.

Of course you won't be spending as much money on hardware as PC gamers so there are some benefits. ;)

Re:flash the cash

[wormbin]

Unlikely.

Valve is a private company that was founded by a couple of ex-Microsofties who now have plenty of cash. Valve doesn't get bought by anyone unless the founders say so.

David Hufford

[cgenman]

David Hufford, a product manager in Microsoft's Xbox group, said the Media Center PC remains the central digital entertainment hub of the home, at least to Microsoft's thinking. ... Hufford said it's easier for Microsoft to innovate its console with new add-ons like Music Mixer because the Xbox has a built-in hard drive that easily stores new digital entertainment applications.

We have a product manager who actually believes in the "Media PC," who believes a karoke software product is an original add-on which will sell a videogame, and who refers to "innovating [the] console" by writing software.

Obviously, Mr. Hufford could use a tighter grasp on reality. For example, here is an interview snippet ripped from Gamespy.

David Hufford: My name is David Hufford and I work on the Marketing team at Xbox, so my primary job is to market all things Xbox, including this new game controller.

GameSpy: What are you calling this new controller?

David Hufford: We're calling it Xbox Controller S.

GameSpy: What does the S stand for?

David Hufford: Well, there's not a lot of science behind it, it's more of an art thing. I think we were all in a room and thought it would be a cool name, so we just came up with it.

Sounds brilliant, doesn't he?

Actually, that one is taken a bit out of context. He doesn't flub the rest of the interview, and he doesn't flub the other interviews available for googling (though he does use the phrases "super-hot" and "kicks butt" too often for someone in a professional communications position). So he does sound like he is qualified to talk about whether or not Half-Life 2 will make the console, although he's equally likely to be one of the people who described Microsoft BOB as a "totally awesome innovation, dude."

After all of that tortureous and unnecessary deconstruction of the messenger, it isn't that surprising that Half-Life 2 wouldn't make the big X. The bare minimum specs have always hovered around the XBox level: 700 Mhz CPU with a good DX6 card. And, sadly, the minimum specs for computer games are generally set at what will actually physically play the game, albeit at 320x240 and 5 frames per second. If the XBox is at the minimum specs for the game, the XBox will be too slow to play it satisfactorily.