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Halo 3 and the Second Wave of 360 Games
conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interview with Microsoft Game Studios' Shane Kim in which he discusses the second wave of Xbox 360 games. When asked if Halo 3 is coming out this year, the answer was: 'It depends. If it's the game that everyone is expecting then, yes. For us it's about making a proper impact on the platform. It has to be something with huge significance, so we won't be rushed.'" If you know what that means, I would like to offer you a cookie, because I sure as heck don't.
... but will it actually be developed by Bungie?
Halo 2 is one of the best selling console games ever, and MS would be insane not to have Halo 3 in development for the Xbox 360. That said, the big question is which team is handling it? After Halo 2, Bungie said that Halo 3 would not be their next title. Gates then came out and said something about Halo 3 releasing with the PS3 (in a more recent interview with him he said he'd made a mistake with that). As a result of that combined with the recent release of the 360, everyone has assumed that Bungie must be working on Halo 3 after all despite the fact that nothing has actually been announced.
Personally, I'm a long-standing Bungie fan, since I got Operation Desert Storm for my old Mac LC575. For me, Halo 2 was a gigantic disappointment. It is certainly a good game, but it feels almost soulless, lacking in those special, hard to describe qualities that had set their games apart previously. When you look at the dev team that worked on it, the reason is pretty clear: the original team is now far outnumbered by newer talent.
I would not be surprised at all if Bungie dropped an 'unexpected' bombshell at E3, announcing and demoing a new game that isn't Halo 3, but something completely new. Perhaps an entirely new genre? I'd love to see a talented group like them tackle an RPG, for example. There is absolutely no reason why a separate Microsoft studio couldn't be working on Halo 3 and having some of the Bungie team give them the nod every now and then. It's not unheard of in the game development world after all. For example, Bioware handed off Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights to Obsidian so they could concentrate on developing new IP. There's no reason why Bungie couldn't still be involved in a creative capacity as well.
Allowing Bungie to work on something new while continuing to develop Halo as a brand would make sense in terms of long-term marketing too. MS at the moment have only got a few franchises that they can build on - Perfect Dark, Project Gotham, and Halo are about the shape of it. Bungie have proven that they have the ability to create franchises. If they produce something completely new, then there is a strong chance that it will end up becoming another large franchise for MS. The X360 should have at least another 3-4 years in its lifespan, and having an extra big franchise that they can push down the line when interest begins to wane would be good business sense for Microsoft.
Personally, I'd be far more interested in seeing something original from Bungie. What did that "Pheonix" project they were throwing around a few years back turn out to be, anyway?