Slashdot Mirror
Halo 2 Only on Vista
iLogiK writes "Halo 2 will be available for PC, but only in Windows Vista. From the announcement: 'Halo 2 the game that redefined first-person combat and multiplayer action for millions of gamers worldwide, is set to explode onto PCs exclusively for Windows Vista. Halo 2 for Windows Vista will be developed by a dedicated Microsoft Game Studios team in partnership with Bungie Studios.'" That's one way to force upgrades. I thought just not releasing patches for the microsoft-worm-of-the-week would be enough ;)
Vista to become the most popular download on gaming torrents sites... ;)
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Whats the point of this? First off, anyone who wanted Halo 2 has it for Xbox. Secondly, Halo isn't that good a game- it got a big name as a great Xbox game because Xbox had jack shit else to play. Thirdly, noone is going to upgrade their OS just to buy a praticular game. This isn't going to push VIsta sales, its just going to kill sales of Halo 2 PC.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Does this mean DirectX 10 will be available exclusively on Vista? Or are they simply introducing an artificial restriction here? If the latter is the case, I imagine someone will work around it fairly quickly.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I guess I'll just stick to Worms then!
Instead of upgrading to Vista just buy a first-generation XBox. Cheap, works great and the game is down around $10 now.
The OS all the way down to games. Sounds like a good way to invite anti-trust complaints.
Cost to play Halo 2 on a XBox: about $200.00
Cost to play Halo 2 on Windows Vista: A lot more than $200.00
Can't see this being any sort of incentive. Heck, I can't even see a big market for it.
Ok that will convince the dozen people who liked halo and don't have an Xbox already to upgrade to Vista, but XP is still chugging along fine for the rest of us.
Hopefully wine will catch up soon, although I hear WV will have all sorts of DRM bundled into it. In any case, I'm migrating over to Linux for good when XP becomes obsolete. Who needs new games when I've got wine, dosbox, c64 and amiga emulators plus nethack ;)
I seriously doubt that one single game is going to convince very many people to go through the expense of switching to another version of Windows, and upgrading their hardware.
This space unintentionally left blank.
...now we know Vista sales aren't going to flop too badly, since some of the top games will only run on it. I remember something similar with Windows 95, in which new games in 1995 were released exclusively for Windows 95.
Still, I wonder if the Vista requirement for Halo 2 is because of technologies only available in Vista, or because of an artificial requirement.
"Vista: Halo 2 Edition" == "Warezed copy of Vista"
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
I look forward to 2011, when it's released.
Microsoft will learn very quickly that they can't treat PC gamers like console gamers. Its a completely different world. There is no such thing as an exclusive release on the pc side. No other game developer will make a game that only runs on Vista and risk alienating the entire community.
So who cares? Seriously, there are far better shooters out there. I played Halo 1, it was just like UT2003 but crappier. Maybe UT copied Halo, but it's better regardless.
Wife make you sleep on the couch last night? You sound a little cranky today...
That's the time it'll take for WINE to handle the "Vista-only" software. It's also twice the time it will take for M$ to respond with a lawsuit. Isn't it wonderful knowing what we're efficient at?
... those who keep XP in the machines just to play games, liars, and stupid people who don't even play games.
Halo 2 for the PC will be delayed until 2010 at least.
Vista: the new Daikatana.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Honestly, does this really mean anything to anyone?
Let's face facts. Those who must play Halo 2 either already have an XBox 360 or plan on getting one. I played the original Halo port for the PC and I was unimpressed. The graphics were quite nice; the story was interesting; but compared to the plethora of first-person shooters, I did not think that Halo was all that great. And from what I've been reading, most PC people believe the same. I understand that a game like Halo was somewhat of a revolution for a console; but for a PC it was a lot of "been there, done that."
I'm sure that some people will use this as an excuse to upgrade to Vista, like those idiots who line up at midnight at Wal-Mart for the latest Windows OS; but - as a PC gamer who plays mostly FPS games - just because a game has the "Halo" title is not enough to make me (or any PC person with at least half a brain) to want to go through what is traditionally a painful, Windows upgrade cycle. Not to mention that I'm not going to pay over $200 (game + Vista) to play one game.
Just my two cents.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I'm pretty sure I played (and beat) Halo2 a good while ago, before 'Vista' even existed...
Maybe the Vista version will actually have an ending... Doesn't matter, I'm not going to buy Vista, and I'm definitely not going to buy Halo2 a second time, they lost my money to Epic and id (and Valve if I'm feeling masochistic).
Halo and Halo 2 were fun, but the campaign was WAY too short (kinda makes sense when you find out that Halo 2 was supposed to be part of Halo...).
So a year old game that can be played on an old game system that can be bought for less than the cost of the Vista upgrade is going to be the motivating factor?
All I see here is sluggish sales for Halo 2. Which, of course, will be punditized into the end of the PC gaming world.
Of course, Vista has, theoretically, all sorts of new game functionality. Like playing games without installation. So you need the CD all the time. Won't install on the hard drive at all.
Or did they take that out yet?
I'm going to stick with City of Heroes, you guys stick with World of Warcraft, and, much as I've liked some of Microsoft's previous games, this one is _not_ going to be the next Crimson Skies for the PC.
They aren't microsoft's worms. They are the programmer's worms. Give credit. And just because I type fast slashdot shouldn't penalize me.
From tfa: "Master Chief Dual-Wields His Way to Windows Vista" No, he will monpolize his way into Vista....
Purple, because ice cream has no bones.
To get the performance I need, I have a dedicated gaming box just for situations like this. Most likely I will have been upgraded to Vista by the time this comes out, so I don't really see a problem. I have been playing catch-up with hardware, so it looks like software is unfortunately just following suit (F.E.A.R. comes to mind). I am more worried that my pre-Vista games will die. So now I wonder, Halo 2 or Duke Nukem Forever...which will be released first ;)
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
I miss them horribly! Ever since they moved to Redmond they are just a Halo factory. They made their name with wonderful games like Marathon and Myth, but now I feel they are a shadow of their former selves as far as creative flexibility is concerned. The people who ran Bungie made some nice money, but I feel that the quality of their games has diminished somewhat.
I remember reading that the 360 and Vista share similar software in the graphics system. In other words, MS was going to a "write once, play everywhere (that's from MS)" architecture so developers wouldn't have to do a lot of converting. It sounds like this is fallout from that, not some evil marketing plot to make people buy Vista to play a game.
Microsoft might think they're pulling some sort of slick move to get people to upgrade to Vista, but I doubt it will work for the intelligent people out there. There isn't a Frosty's nuts chance in hell that I'd upgrade XP to Vista just to play Halo 2. I'll buy an Xbox first. Of course Microsoft may be trying to force sales of that also, but it has got to be worlds better than that shitty Vista crap. Look at the system requirements! My system can't measure up, but it is far better than XP ever expected to see and so XP kicks ass for me.
slow news day I guess.
Vista, schmista. I'm still waiting for Cairo, that was gonna be the shit.
You mean only Vista and Wine?
We will find a way.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
I was hoping to play it before 2010. There goes that plan.
It is interesting just how much M$ is willing to shoot itself in the foot commercially and destroy the PC franchise just to try to get an extra half dozen vista sales.
Another cheap trick brought to you by the folks in marketing. Really, they need people to buy Vista, as most productivity software will continue to run just fine on XP (and continue to be released for it as well), they need to start getting some hype going. This is only the early going and while Halo 2 may pale beside many of the FPS games out there, some will want it. On it's own it won't be enough to warrant the Vista buy, keep you eyes peeled for more on the home entertainment front. It is already known cable card will only be supported in Vista (on the ms side of things) for example.
Expect more Vista only over the next year, you ain't seen nothing yet.
The guy that runs the crackpot science site has proof that Microsoft is secretly working on a Linux port.
:-)
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
WHO CARES!?
By the time Halo 2 for Vista comes out it'll be old and outdated. Unreal Tournament 2007 will already be out. And who knows, by the time Vista comes out with Halo 2, Unreal Tournament 2010 might already be out.
It worked before why not again, when Windows 95 came out ALL new games afterward ONLY supported Win 95. Some could be made to work on DOS/Win 3.1, but due to deals for the "Designed for Win 95 Logo" none mentioned it on the box.
Ike
I just got my laptop with XP, just got one for my sister, and just upgraded her desktop to XP as well because she needs Office 2003 to be compatible with school which wouldnt' work on her old 98SE. We haven't got our money's worth out of XP yet, and I ain't shelling out for Vista for some time without a _very_ good reason.
Things I don't consider to be _very_ good reason: Halo2 (I've alrady become bored with my roomate's Xbox copy anyway), antivirus, better security than XP (They used the same marketing with XP and look at the weekly exploits still going around for it, I simply don't believe this line of baloney).
My sister will get it when she requires it for school. I don't know if I'll see a good reason for myself getting it unless it comes with my next laptop. As I'd like to get some use out of my new laptop, that won't be for a few years. It won't come with my next desktop, as I don't buy complete systems for that.
Tieing Halo 2 to a Windows upgrade purchase pisses me off, and only motivates be to avoid both as much as possible.
What's this? Windows only? (And not just any Windows... Windows Longtooth^h^h^h^h^h^h^hVista.)
So what gives, Bungie? You started out as a Mac game company, with tremendous loyalty from your customer base and promised to never forget us. I mean, a Windows *first* release is understandable, but to go Win-exclusive? I guess the lure of big money was too strong to resist. Like everyone's mom used to say "you're judged by the friends you keep." I would add "...and the ones you throw away."
So long Bungie, we hardly knew ye.
I loved Halo one the PC, and refuse to use console controls for playing an FPS. I tried Halo 2 on xbox and the controller was pretty much unusable. All of the Halo fans who want to play on windows will have to lock in to DRM.
And I've already decided I won't be using Vista, so I guess I won't be playing Halo 2. No big loss since from what I hear (and from the hour or so I played it) it's more like Halo 1.5.
Since I'm also boycotting starforce, I probably won't be playing many more PC games in the future. Time to grow up I guess.
I guess I won't be playing Halo 2. I have absolutely no other reason to upgrade from XP Pro. If they really want people who want to play Halo 2 to upgrade, they should give Vista purchasers a free copy of Halo 2. That'd probably stoke the Vista fire for them, sales-wise.
And they said zombies weren't real!
I wonder how long it will be before Wine will support emulation of Vista?
Truely, I found that my soundcard driver and various other thing would hard-lock my system in XP... very annoying when you're in the middle of a game. Most of the windows games I run play nicely on Wine/Cedega, some even better (as in the case of my laptop, where the video driver will not update in windows).
If Cedega gains more support for newer games, all the more reason for me to stick with it and/or linux. XP is bad enough, I certainly wouldn't want to upgrade to vista just to play a few newer games.
Damn, I got my hopes up given Q4 and UT's latest games run that other FPSs might come accross.
Hint: Funny/Sarcasm (Got a feeling some mods might go for Insightful)
I've used Windows since Windows 95 and upgraded everytime, and never been very satisfied with it.
95 > 98 > ME > 2k > XP
I *swear* I'm not going to Vista. I *swear* it! I'll keep using XP until it's time to buy a new PC, then I'll buy a Mac.
Stephen
"Halo 2 the game that redefined first-person combat and multiplayer action for millions of gamers worldwide, is set to explode onto PCs..."
With Windows, "explode" takes on a whole new meaning...
Not that I really care about Halo... but what a bunch of a-holes.
will it require 300$ vista to run? or... will it run on any vitsa?
I was neverimpressed with halo, the xbox or, most of anything microsoft have created.
As a PC gamer, I waited for Halo 1 to come to PC before playing it (other than casually on friends' XBoxes). After seeing that Bungie was too lazy to port over the cooperative muitiplayer mode, I no longer have any interest in Halo games on the PC.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
I'll just wait for Halo 3 on PlayStation 3, so a big up yours M$.
I always thought anyone who really found the Halo's to be truely revolutionary has never played an FPS on a computer -- there really wasn't anything unique about the game. The rendering engine was at best on par with other games of its time, and the control was less than average (I'm a keyboard and mouse guy). Story isn't terribly important when it comes to player vs player. So if it can only be played on Vista, why does anyone really care? It's an old game that wasn't anything special to begin with.
I already own an xbox. This is also why gaming on PC's or Mac's is an absolutley retarded concept.
"Halo 2," the game that redefined first-person combat and multiplayer action for millions of gamers worldwide, is set to explode onto PCs exclusively for Windows Vista. "Halo 2" for Windows Vista will be developed by a dedicated Microsoft Game Studios team in partnership with Bungie Studios. "
someone please explain how Halo * 'redefined first-person combat and multiplayer action'. improved? sure. redefinded? eh...
almost like "windows 98 redefines windows 95!!"
also, "Halo 2...will be developed by a dedicated Microsoft Game Studios team...with Bungie Studios". i belive bungie made the first one, aka "the instant classic 'Halo: Combat Evolved'" with out 'a dedicated Microsoft Game Studios team'... and if i'm not mistaken (could be..)they made the second one with out them as well.... so it's not broken, don't fix it.
lastly, 'expoldes onto' might paint a different picture to the *stereotypical* youth-gamer. kinda funny picture really... master chief... exploding onto vista...
nevermind forget that
i don't care
This has long been the case; ever since DirectX 10 was announced, it was known to be Vista-only. DirectX 10 will not run on XP. You can verify this yourself by running the DirectX 10 preview from Microsoft.
Not only that, Direct3d 10 requires DirectX 10 capable hardware, non of which is currently available.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
"Halo 2 the game that redefined first-person combat and multiplayer action for millions of gamers worldwide, is set to explode onto PCs..."
Wasn't Starseige Tribes the first FPS that "redefined" multiplayer gaming?
About the only chance MS has of getting me to buy an Xbox, is if I can get it modded to run MythTV for free.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I heard microsoft was going to start charging for a patch that fixes a bug that keeps people from running certain software!
Oh wait.
Games: My Ass not Playing Halo 2
You know, it'd be one thing if this announcement were about Halo 3 instead of 2. That'd at least make sense. But, as has already been iterated repeatedly, noone's gonna upgrade for such a retarded reason. Especially for an old game. Half the PC gamers won't care, and the other half will have already beaten it on an Xbox anyhow. Noone's gonna buy it again unless there's some enormous expansion. This is part of the problem as it is when it comes to developers idiotically releasing a PC version of a game WAAAAY after then console versions were released instead of simultaneously. Then all those developers and publishers sit there wondering why the hell the PC version of a game doesn't sell as well (GTA: San Andreas, anyone?) as if the whole world hasn't played it already. Likewise, I don't exactly recall the masses running out to buy Halo 1 for PC after its eventual release, either. Mind you, many were still mad that it was dangled in front of them before being snatched away to Xbox to begin with.
"I've got better things to do tonight than die." - Transformers: The Movie
DirectX 10 appears to be available exclusively on Vista. At least the preview in the December 2005 Direct X SDK samples make it seem this way.
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
This is upsetting, considering Bungie started out as a Mac-only publisher. Now that Bill and company have purchased them, they're making the game that was supposed to be computer first (not XBOX) into a MS-only game. Great.
It's "PLOAF," not "P-LOAF." Ask about it.
The only thing that Halo 2 redefined was hype. If these guys think that Halo 2 - which has been on the Xbox for months now - is going to be a selling point for Vista, they're sorely mistaken.
i really doubt that halo2 will be exploding onto the PC market.
I think we've all learned what to expect from a year-late ports of mediocre games.
and what exactly is it that halo2 will require that xp can't provide? is the engine more demanding than doom3 or source?
thanks for selling out, again, bungie...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
What does Vista have that XP doesn't (or, won't be back-ported.. like Avalon and Indigo) that would be a legitimate, technical reason for Halo 2 not to run on XP?
I don't think there is one.. I think Microsoft is trying to use Halo 2 to force people to buy Vista.. and if that's the case, I condemn it.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Windows XP gamers - welcome to the land of MAC and Linux gamers.
-516
How is this different to Sony only releasing their newest games on their newest console? There's no technical reason they can't do some sort of back-port, they just want to drive sales.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Perhaps the reason MS is going to release Halo 2 on Vista rather than on XP is that with the steep hardware requirements for Vista (especially the requirement for a high-end DX10 capable graphics card), you're pretty much guaranteed a system which will that game can run decently on.
This tells me that MS knows there is at least a chance that the hard core computer gamers see little if any reason to upgrade to Vista on its own merits.
But if they restrict one of the most anticipated games to Vista, the computer gamers have no choice but to upgrade if they want to play the game.
I'd expect more marketing-driven announcements like this with other MS software (Office, IE7, etc) to give the same perceived need to the rest of the market.
(Sure, IE7 runs on XPSP2 now, but who says that won't change?)
This is the end of the line for Bungie. They started as a Mac-only developer, then got bought by Microsoft, now they are mere puppets of Microsoft, dropping their Mac development completely. This is the kiss of death for a developer. Let me give you a similar example.
Atomic Games started as a Mac-only developer, winning awards for its V for Victory series. Eventually they evolved into doing simultaneous PC/Mac releases. Then in a fit of pique over some API changes in OS X, the lead developer dropped Mac support in the middle of their Close Combat series, and went PC only. Shortly thereafter, they were bought out by Microsoft. After a couple of additional CC releases with decreasing sales, Atomic folded up and ceased development. Now they whore out licensing rights to the CC name to other developers.
This is how to kill your company, by alienating your most devoted customers so you can make a fast buck. I predict Halo 2 is the end of the line for Halo and Bungie. Bungie made their fast buck, they have no incentive to continue making more money for MS than for themselves.
I suspect that Halo 2 on PC has more to do with DRM than with anything else. It will likely use Vista's DRM techniques, and thus wouldn't run on an earlier version of Windows. I can see this being the proof of concept for using DRM in video game development. They may also be looking at this as a real world test of Vista's DRM.
IANAL... But I play one on
I liked Halo-2. I played it a bit, but never finished it. It's still there, waiting for me. The X-Box has gathered a lot of dust in the nine months or so since I last turned it on.
It's a good game, in my opinion. Not astoundingly good, but solid.
So what has it got to do with Vista?
I thought about this, and the best answer I can come up with is "absolutely nothing."
This is some marketing bozo saying "Halo sold a lot of X-Boxes, Halo-2 sold a *lot* of X-boxes, so Halo-2 will sell a **lot** of copies of Vista!"
It's not a killer app for Vista. It doesn't give you anything you can't have somewhere else. By the time it's out for Vista I expect we'll be seeing Halo-3 for the X-Box 360 anyway, and that's not a great message - "Vista: runs last year's superceded games really well!"
A real killer app for Vista would be something like a version of Office that has special abilities you can only get through the new OS. Although I don't want to draw a parallel, I'm thinking of how Apple introduced lots of new Core-XXXX features in OS X 10.4. Core Image is a solid image processing API that gives you a lot of the Photoshop filter power in only a few lines of code (and uses the GPU to accelerate it). Core Data gives you a good database-like API (although I haven't looked much at this). Spotlight and Dashboard help the UI, and so on. There are solid foundations for killer apps in OS X 10.4, and from what I can see, there should be solid foundations for killer apps in Vista.
It's just that Halo-2 isn't a killer app.
All you V1sta n00bs are going to be pnwed by my l33t skilz.
So then I have about 4 yrs to save up for the vista only relase of halo 2?
For the last 3 years, Microsoft has said that they're extending their XBox Live service to Windows when Vista comes out. (No, I don't know why nobody has reported it either; maybe because it still seems so far off. The usb version of the XBox 360 controller [announced at the same time] has already come out.) Anyway, Halo 2 comes to mind when I think of a game that utilizes XBox Live well. It makes sense that they'd use that title to highlight the new features of Windows Vista.
Notice, btw, how they're reinforcing their overall position by leveraging their two platforms in tandem. When some people say cross-platform they're thinking Windows/Mac/Linux. When other people say cross-platform, they're thinking PC/Console. Microsoft is creating an enticing proposition for the content developers.
If current betas are any indication at all (and I think they are), Vista's gaming performance is going to SUCK. With all the fancy graphics turned on, Vista uses over 500 MB of RAM with nothing else running. Microsoft ought to come up with a "Gaming Mode" which is sort of like a Safe Mode or DOS-only mode. Minimal services and no Explorer running. Gaming performance would be much better.
"Well, on a PC, you do get to use a mouse. I'd argue that they work a hell of a lot better."
Is exactly what the OP needs to know. Don't underestimate the power of the PC Gamer's mind to find little things to justify how leet-sauce they feel about having a computer with lights, loud spinning fans, 15k-rpm SCSI drives, and a copy of Windows running on it, versus spending about 20$ on a keyboard/mouse to Xbox adaptor, and using a keyboard and mouse on an Xbox (or just learning how to play with a joystick, which isn't that hard).
PC gamers are to regular gamers like people in the NRA and who drive SUVs are to regular people driving their Toyota Yaris and who don't own guns -- they are making up for something, and they are willing to spend any amount of money to fix it. Witness the 700$ US video card market.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"Vista: Halo 2 Edition" == "Warezed copy of Vista"
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if someone made a DVD ISO of a nice, bootable Windows Vista install, stripped out to the bare essentials like those various tech/maintenance CDs, complete with a functioning copy of the game ready to run. If they did it right then it'd not need to do much more than use the HD for swap and for save games.
Has Microsoft managed to finally get all of of the Windows 2000 holdouts to switch to XP yet? I know that they're business customers mainly, but if they're having trouble with them then I don't see them having a lot more success with Vista in the business environment either. 3/4 of the computers at my employer still run Windows 98 or 95...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Ever tried installing MSO 2003 on 98? Gotta pull support at some point.
Granted this is rather fast, but noone said they have to keep writing apps for 'old' products at all.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
While I might have wanted to buy Halo 2 (since I played Halo 1 and enjoyed it), if it runs only on Vista, I won't be purchasing it. I hope the Microsoft kickbacks are large enough to compensate for all of the people like me.
Microsoft, I'm not interested in upgrading to Vista. I use your Windows XP OS, but I understand you are adding more big-brother type features to Vista, and I don't like that. I also don't like the whole CLR executable concept (I like my byte code best when its native CPU instructions!)
I have linux on 3 computers at home, but run windows xp on my primary system for games. With Vista I'm planning to take that opportunity to terminate my relationship as a Microsoft customer. I hope the game companies recognize that I'm not alone in my dislike of Vista and plan to increase their support for Linux.
Halo was innovative because it pushed games into whole new areas of integration.
Besides tribes and a few other games vehicles were mostly viewed as single player feature, not a multiplayer asset. Look at just about any game now and the vehicle + dm model has really taken hold. I would say at least in a small part because of the success of Halo.
Single button grenade throw. The concept of being able to throw grenades whith a gun out was done before (Team Fortress) but nowhere to the level and integration that Halo sported. Throwing a grenade was part of combat in Halo, not just a weapon whose bullets happen to have a short range and bounce.
Single button melee attack. Halo brought the melee attack previously only found in sneaky shadow games like Metal gear to the FPS.
What made Halo the first-person that redefined first person combat were all of these things in tandem:
You're driving along in a jeep, someone throws a grenade onto your jeep. You jump out. Take a shot, they hide behind a rock. You throw a grenade over the rock to flush them out. As they come out you club them over the head.
This is an experience still unique to the halo franchise.
Is it near The Undercity? I don't go over there that often.
Halo one runs like, well... [explicative here] on PC. It's absurd. I can rull Half-Life 2 fully cranked yet Halo 1 is still choppy and looks terrible at the same resolution and settings. Considering the hardware in the orignal xbox's, all I can find to blame is bad coding and bugs in the software. Perhaps someone can port it to PC *FOR REAL* this time. And then I'll consider giving out my $.
I can't be alone thinking that doing everything they can to force upgrades to Vista has something to do with forcing DRM, can I?
PC gamers are to regular gamers like people in the NRA and who drive SUVs are to regular people driving their Toyota Yaris and who don't own guns -- they are making up for something, and they are willing to spend any amount of money to fix it.
Or they want to play independent games, which have historically been locked out of consoles.
As I've hinted at before, I've tested Vista, and I believe it's the next 'Microsoft Bob'. So my predicition is they won't be selling many copies of Halo II for the PC...
run windows Vista through an emulation
"Error: TPM not found. Please run Windows Vista on the bare hardware."
Duke Nukem Forever is being designed so it will only run on Windows Vienna.
I'm getting visions of a Linux desktop and a lot of console gaming in my future...
If you do your gaming on a console, then how are you going to play independent games? Free software, freeware, and shareware games do not legitimately show up on consoles because of the lockout chip business model. Will you just hope that independent games developed for Microsoft Windows work in Wine?
As long as I can run whatever software I want without having it signed by MS or some big company, it's OK for me.
Applications yes, device drivers no. This will hurt hobbyists and smaller shops that develop embedded systems once Windows Vista becomes the dominant operating system on 64-bit PCs, as they won't be able to write and install a driver to connect the embedded system to the PC without paying well into the three figures annually for a code signing license.
Somehow I was expecting something like this to occur. Of course Microsoft wants to make Vista most sold Windows ever to make it sell even some more... ...How to do it? It's easy, first you do a software everybody wants, making it available on some other platforms. Then make it available to the most used platform and make it only work with that nevest Windows.
Hmmm, Do I smell chance to make some cash here?
M$ over did it but hey! It might be a good strategy... ...and that retarded. :P
-Seeing the problem is ½ of solution-
without HALO, would we have RedVsBlue?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So now we're told that Halo 2 -- a more complex beast -- will require an "upgrade" to Windows Vista. So I have to compound one performance disaster with another?
I hope to put together a completely new machine this year (my 1GHz dual Pentium is starting to show its age) and it will need Windows, since I play a fair number of games. However, I'm still running Win-2K at home, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it that makes me want to suffer a change to XP, let alone the disasterous copy-protection nightmare of Vista.
So, no sale. There's no reason to believe that Halo 2 for the PC won't suck at least as much as the original Halo PC sucked. And it's certainly not enough reason to cripple my machine with Vista.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
What this really means is that PC gamers won't get a slightly above-average game for another two years, right?
Boy, I wonder just how bad the graphics will look like then. (consitering graphics is about all it has going for it)
I thought just not releasing patches for the microsoft-worm-of-the-week would be enough
You seem to forget Microsoft's mission statement: Nothing is ever enough
It's funny how much time the anti-microsoft crowd spends cleverly crafting slams against Microsoft. It's as if they have typed out an incredibly witty phrase ahead of time (months or years ahead of time) and they sit at their computer, poised over the keyboard, staring at Slashdot, waiting for an article to appear that clinches the moment they can click the "Submit" button, unleashing their masterful creation in a moment of pure euphoria (which triggers ejaculation).
Maybe Windows doesn't provide the environment you're comfortable using. Use something else.
Somebody has got to post a screenshot of this. Otherwise I'm going to spend the time this evening trying to find that ad in the game.
For the record, I (finally) bought an XBox to run Doom 3. On the Mac side, you had to shell out for some pretty high-end hardware to get Doom 3 playable, making the $200 for an XBox look like a deal. I resisted the Halo urge for years, but now I'm happy that I've played both Halo 1 and 2. There's something cool about seeing the Marathon symbol painted on the side of the Pillar of Autumn. Makes me remember university LAN parties and making Marathon levels.
HBH
"Smart is sexy." -- D. Scully ("War of the Coprophages")
your EQ2's bitch. :)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This doesn't have anything to do with Halo 2 on Vista.
That said, please visit Radio Grooove on Pandora at http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh12211603
The basic lineup is trance-techno-goa-groove-synth, Pandora varies the list from those origins. It's free, runs on Flash.
If this annoys you please feel free to mod this to hell, but please note the music is *free*.
Halo 2 is not anything new for pc gamers, but why dose everyone have to take a punch at MS about any news that comes out?
The gaming industry would like to send out a big thank-you to the both of them...
But win95 had some advantages for the developer, like not having to code for each type of hardware out there (not everybody had a sounblaster-compatible, for example).
Windows Vista will be a resource hog and have no advantages that Halo 2 can use.
Idiot. Moreso whoever gave this +5 insightful.
Aren't all X-box 360 controllers that are wired and have USB plug and play ready for windows XP?
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
You've been warned.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
Is this going to be the part where Microsoft includes the ending of the game?
Halo 1 Easter Eggs Scroll down abit.
Wanna bet?
Halo was a decent enough FPS, but nothing spectacular. It looks like Halo 2 is the same. I'd consider buying it if it were available for my system, but I'm not going to spend my time and money upgrading my hardware and risking a whole new OS just to play one game.
If Microsoft restrict their games pointlessly to running on Vista, that just means their competitors in the gaming markets have a free run over everyone still using XP or earlier. I'll bet there are a lot more people like me than there are mad keen types who will buy the latest and greatest graphics card and upgrading their whole system just for one title that's worth a few hours of gameplay.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I am afraid this will become the new requirement for many games. Why is Vista better for games anyway? Can we get warez Vista with built-in Halo 2? Do I care?
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
Free AIDS included?
I know its off topic but don't waste mod points on me.
when MS has to use a VIDEO GAME to market its new OS.
If Halo2/Win32 is anything like Halo1/Win32, then it will just be a half-baked low-res textured, unoptimized port of the XBox version that no serious gamer will want to play.
A pity, since the original Halo/Win32 (before Bungie got bought out by MS) was looking really good but will probably never see the light of day.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
There were too many "foundations" so WGF had to go. Personally I liked the WGF name...
My story's pretty much the same (well, other than age - late 20s, but still went through online Doom, etc.). I know a lot of other people in similar situations who experienced the same kind of thing. This sounds like a bad joke or MS astroturfing, but I honestly had a close friend call me after he got his Xbox and Halo and told me that "Bill Gates has restored my faith in gaming." Obviously that's a little extreme (and he was definitely being a little humorous), but Halo's success clearly isn't just the novelty of a good FPS game on the consoles. A huge number of Halo's fans are PC FPS vets.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
Don't care to explain why that is, but on to the main point of my post. When a computer comes into my possession, SP2 goes on, the themes service goes off, if the indexing service is on it is off. I install Agent Ransack, because the disk search utility that comes with Windows is worse than useless. I add the Japanese IME in the localization control panel. I turn on multiple window panes in explorer, because single window navigation is useless except through the folders panel which automatically reverts the navigation to single pane. The web view pane should be as open and closable as the folders view but isn't. As soon as around 20 explorer windows are open, the grouping in the taskbar gets wonky, and on top of that, when around 40 windows from all programs are open, some sort of resource limit is reached, and no error message is displayed, windows and context menus cease to be created, and every so often a window with partial elements is rendered. All too often I get a window with the windows throbber neatly centered in the view, the menu missing.
The 360 supports independant developers.
And how many long years was it between the release of the NES and the release of the Xbox 360? And where can one even buy an Xbox 360 in North America?
especially if DirectX 10 is Vista-only.
Hell, there were fast as hell paced FPS like Tribes (the biggest one since it had vehicles, jetpacks, EVERYTHING), the Quake series, and Unreal Tournament (not the year #, just UT). The only people it changed FPS for was the people that play games to be cool on their XBox (when gaming went "mainstream")
Free AIDS included?
We've really gone too far if you have to pay extra for that.
Face it, XP works well for what most people want to do on their computer. Leave Auto updates on, run a free AV, Firefox, and don't download warez and your golden.
It works well for gaming, business use, and even AV. And in many cases it's pretty stable. Oh and it runs very well on 4 year old hardware.
What possible reason is there for businesses or consumers to incur the expense of moving to Vista? Everything I've seen so far could easily be added as SP3 for XP. Ooooh a calendar and a new version of WMP...Yawn. I realize MS has to make a buck, but IMHO if they have to resort to crap like making games only work on Vista in order to sell it, then it sounds like Vista is gonna have an awefully hard time standing on its own merits.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
"Vista: runs last year's superceded games really well!"
Those bastards really are copying every aspect of the Mac with Vista, aren't they?
There's _way_ too much value in developers being able to work with VMs for Microsoft to make them unusable.
Bungie developers are allowed to use a version of Microsoft Virtual PC signed by Microsoft to debug Microsoft games. Residential end users don't have this special version; Windows Vista would start but Halo 2 would likely give an error message.
But then, I have run halo two on my PS1.
C'mon, Bungie is the world's biggest Microsoft shill !
MicroShaft pwn3d them when StarSiege and Tribes were young'n's. They were decent games with a fresh paradigm, but built on aging engines (especially StarSiege), and failing due to Sierra's incompetance. Bungie had announced they were going to squirt out Halo for the PC... the concept and screens were looking good... even that annoying title music had been passed for a good while. And so Microslop bought them up- studio, code, souls. Everything.
Halo had the potential to become a great multiplayer app. Microsocks needed a killer game for Xbox. And so, the Borg descended.
Now Bill has stuck his hand in Bungie's user port, wiggled a few fingers, and out of the mouth of Bungie came the Vista announcement.
That accomplishes a major thing: the first brick in the wall of XP's retirement. Only in Microdink's mind, though.
Microsoft NEEDS to sell Vista titles to recover its costs to develop the system. But nobody cares about Vista because there isn't anything bundled in it that is truly revolutionary. It's just a whole lot prettier than Windows XP, and that's about it. The initial hype was over some ambitious features which where rolled back when timelines and reality set in. Now that those features are nerfed, excitement has fizzled and people realize that their current OS is all ready taking them where they want to be. Why bother to upgrade?
Lets look at MS Vista's feature set from the MS web site:
User Experience: What does this really do for me? Prettier windows.
Security: Sorry, but I expect this. It's not a feature, but a mandatory item.
Search & Organization: I know where my files are. I rarely use search, and when I do some cartoon drives me nuts!
Performance: Yeah, I know. Gotta buy new hardware to use it.
Windows Backup: My excitement level just went through the roof.
Networking: It's hard to plug in a cat5 cable and use DHCP?!
Sideshow: What's this? Some laptop exclusive feature. Ho hum...
Speech Recognition: This is actually pretty cool stuff, in theory. But hardly worth the upgrade cost.
Help and Feedback: Didn't the previous versions of Windows have this?
Windows Update: See above.
Sync Center: Ahh, Windows Briefcase makes a return!
So those are the new features included in Windows Vista are. Who's ready to buy?! Hello? Any one? Is my keyboard working?
Yeah, I didn't think any of that got any of you excited about entering the hassles of upgrading. I'm certainly still waiting for something exciting.
So now that Halo 2 has all ready recouped its development cost on the Xbox, enter Halo 2 for Vista! Why not bundle Halo 2 in their home version of Windows Vista to spark interest? I wouldn't buy Vista to play Halo 2 again. But I would buy Vista if it came with Halo 2. Anyone else think that this is a good idea?
before you can play those 3D games (halo 2), you need to upgrade your computer with 2 GB ram, US$500+ worth video card, game pad, Windows vista?, and the game. well.. for the money you spend, you can buy a 32" TV, 5.1 sound system, Xbox 360, plus a few good games. so... which option will you choose?
What a dumb way to get people to upgrade to Vista Hamburger! That's ok, by the time I learn Linux, Halo 2 will available via tweaks and hacks... emulation is great, isn't it?
"To err is human, doing it again is downright stupidity!"
All the people that i know who play halo 2, do so on their consoles and not PC's. In fact most dont even have a PC, which is the reason they got the console in the first place. And if the Halo 2 PC version is anywhere near as bad as the Halo PC version it probably wont get very many sales.
Yes I am a troll, but it has to be said neither Halo or Halo2 redefined anything.
When was this game released? Two years ago? And how fast is CGI tech improving these days? The game already looks dated.
Anyone who was really dying to play this game has probably already bought, borrowed, rented, or stolen an Xbox to play it on by now. Hell, I've managed to play through the whole damn thing and I'm not even generally into console gaming.
Cute, Microsoft, but hardly a great deal of incentive.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Finally some more reasons to stay the away from Vista. Like it wasn't enough with the previous "features" stucked into that operating system: it now has Halo 2 aviable. mmmm, can't wait to avoid that.
I wonder what will nVidia's or ATI's response be if Microsft tells them to support Halo 2 (or DirectX10), but "oh yeah it will only on Vista". I think they will not be happy.
No Windows XP, no online play. Nevermind with a hack, the game runs perfectly in Windows 2000. I've got no plans to move my home system from 2000, let alone to Vista!
I guess my copy of Halo 2 will sit up there next to my copy of AOE3. Oh, wait..
Sigh.
..don't panic
So, the system requirements should be expected to be about 3 Gigs of RAM minimum, right?
This is upsetting, considering Bungie started out as a Mac-only publisher. Now that Bill and company have purchased them, they're making the game that was supposed to be computer first (not XBOX) into a MS-only game. Great.
Halo2 was an Xbox-targetted game from its inception. It was never primarily targetted to PCs, and there was never any indication that there'd be a Mac version. So what are you talking about?
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Not that I really care either way, I'm still busy with NetHack, but just curious how far they are going with this.
Either way, users be helping MS to damage the IT market. Halo isn't that groundbreaking imho, if it's actually groundbreaking at all. Vista does have a few cool features, but there's no real need to limit a game to just Vista, I suspect. Except... if the game makes microsoft products look "cool" to a certain crowd, and that helps promote their OS, which in turn helps to lock people and businesses in to their products, then they've done well. However many people pirate Windows, they win because they get a monopoly in businesses by familiarity. For that to happen, it doesn't matter whether gamers pirate their OS or not.
Halo 2 the game that redefined first-person combat and multiplayer action for millions of gamers worldwide,
Yeah, I have to say it did that for me: I found it to be dull and weak; the kind of derivative mediocrity a big company produces after looking at the success of games like Doom and HL and wanting their share, too.
Of course, sadly, for many other gamers, the original statement is probably true as intended: for many people, Halo was indeed the first contact with FPS and they must think of it as one of the top representatives of the genre.
The official requirements for DOOM III for Windows were, IIRC, 2000 and XP. However, after calling down curses on id and Gates, biting the bullet and installing XP (grr), I found out there were easy ways to run DOOM III under 98. (Here's a pretty straightforward example.)
I'd already run most of these 98 tweaks to allow it to boot with 512+MB RAM, so I could have saved myself a lot of time, etc., if only I had known. >:/
Well, why should I go through the largish effort of re-installing my Windows setup?
:)
It currently works quite well for me as a game box, and I'm certainly not willing to switch to something else just to play a mediocre game.
Hey, even if Halo 2 was really good, I wouldn't want to switch. I've learned the hard way that most games are simply not worth the time, money and effort.
Okay, as we're on Slashdot I must mention that I do a lot of work on Linux (my 1.2 TB RAID-5 is not even visible to Windows), but I like Windows for playing games - simply because there are so many.
And, hey, just because a game is a few years old... if you enjoyed playing it back then, you might still enjoy it today. And your PC will handle it great
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
For those who didn't already know, Microsoft has already used this tactic before in their quest to heard gamers onto their latest and greatest operating system. Only last time, it was a pathetically transparent attempt at forcing a targetted user base (one that Microsoft likely considers to be power users... at least moreso than non-gamers) to Windows XP. I think it may very well be important to look back and consider what happened in this instance if we are to look forward to see what type of tactics Microsoft is planning on using to accomplish this: The day before Age of Empires III came out I got a *ahem* preview copy of it from Bit Torrent. Alas, being the Windows 2000 Professional user that I am, I was surprised to learn upon loading the image of the first disc into my virtual drive and running setup.exe that the game only runs on Windows XP! "Wait a minute, that can't be right, we're talking about practically the same operating system with some UI updates and minor kernel tweaks", I thought. There was no logical reason for this game NOT to be able to run on Windows XP, and right off the bat I knew that. The question then became precisely what was needed to be done to get around this, if in fact there was anything. I was initially scared that they had added code into the main game executable so that it wouldn't be able to run on Windows 2000. The only problem was that I had no way of telling without actually INSTALLLING the game and running it for myself. Google was consulted, and answers were found. All that was necessary was to run setup.exe using the command line with a "/n" switch to make it think it was a network install rather than a local installation on a Windows 2000 machine. Bingo. The game installed and ran without a hitch. Weellll, I'll be! This was an extremely blatant and shameful move on Microsoft's part in order to force users into upgrading to Windows XP when there is obviously no need. The barrier was artificial and the result of an unnecessary marketing decision. Like I said, this case is very important to keep in mind as we hear news of the "Vista-only" Halo 2 release. Who knows, maybe the game itself will simply not run on previous versions of Windows due to some unknown technical barrier in how is runs? But there's a very large chance that a simple OS version check will be employed which, whether it exists only in the setup program or also in the main game executable, will likely be easily bypassed. In the end, not enough is known right now about the differences in Vista's core architecture to that of XP, but it will be interesting to see how easily Halo 2 will be to run on Windows XP and 2000 machines.
Nobody from Microsoft has actually been quoted with saying Halo2 is for Vista only, not even on the BBC website.
Nothing costs nothing
it is DNF that would be a Vista only game!
When is Halo 2 due out? Since Vista is not due out until the end of the year, I can't remember a time before when a game in dev was to be released only for an OS not even on the shelves.
I can't really see this making either Halo 2 or Vista jump off the shelves when they hit the market.
"The simple fix was to apply a trivial patch that removed the checking of operating system. Apparently Vista was so rushed that bungie were unable to add hooks, and there was never a question of the OS providing them with anything use useful, so the game would have always run on an older version, in fact, it was more expensive (by a few man hours) to add the extra code, but the real problem was lost sales, although microsoft pushed up enough money as they wanted to get punters onto their more tied in vista platform, perhaps their last upgrade cycle they can take for granted."
assholes
OMG! How do you find out what version of slashcode slashdot is running? I jsut realise the CAPTCHA has been updated - the dictionary now has cooler geek wordsin it! OMFG!!
Really cowboyneal.
please type the word in this image: caldera random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater@slashdot.org
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
I'm lazy, although I'm curious. You have a link to the controller pinout you use for this? Does a setup like that allow you to adjust the sensitivity on the fly via the keyboard? Can I remap the keys without resoldering?
I'm not sure what turning-speed limit you're referring to. By its nature, a mouse-kb adapter setup emulating a controller that has a max turn speed is going to have a maximum turn speed-- but Halo's sensitivity (this directly changes turning speed) defaults to 2 and is adjustable up to 10. At 10, it's not quite as twitchy-fast as I prefer in PC FPSes, but it's close enough that I don't care.
I tried playing with the controller at sensitivity 10, and it was ridiculously fast for use with a controller-- although I'm sure someone with better fingers than mine will post pointing out that they have no problem with it. I have a clear turn-speed advantage over anybody I've played.
This is really not so breaking news, since everyone have ordered Vista a long time ago to play Duke Nukem Forever.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
Yes, but this crowd would have upgraded anyway. They live for rotating windows and eye-candy.
I think this will sell less copis of Halo, not more copies of Windows.
No sig today...
Nope, I was going to buy Halo 2 when it came out, but now I am not... Why ? I have W2k at home, and Halo 1 runs fine on it. Why should I be forced to upgrade to a OS, when I can spend the SAME (guessing) amount of money to go out and buy a xbox.. WTG M$
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
Someone's just going to break whatever retarded version check and made it run on XP, or even just write a quick loader that "emulates" trivial Vista system calls. For everyone else, we've already beat the damned game on Xbox when it came out in 2004 :P If they had said Halo Three then it would be a different story, but luring us to Vista with Halo 2 is like trying to sell a BMW because it has a shiny new FM radio :P
-Billco, Fnarg.com
And of course it should be no surprise that some pro-console, fanboy moderator throws a "redundant" on the post as a way of pushing his pro-console/anti-PC censorship. No surprise here on Slashdot.
Of course Microsoft are missing the fact that most PC gamers couldn't care less about Halo. When the first one came out it was a hit because there were no other decent FPS games on consoles. On the PC there were plenty at the time including several that were better. If they'd released it on the PC then it might have had a chance anyway but they didn't. When they finally did release it on PC I don't know of a single PC gamer who bought it. No-one cared. It was old technology with inferior gameplay, lacking many features that PC gamers are used to and looked downright primitive compared to the crop of PC games that were being released about the same time. Now they're making the same mistake again. If they'd released Halo 2 on PC as soon as it came out it might have had a chance of success even if it was up against superior games at the time like Halflife 2 and Farcry. How bad will it look 2 against PC games with a whole additional 2 year's worth of advances? So again my response to the relase of Halo 2 on PC - who cares?