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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.
It sounds like the clue train is coming in:
Last stop is you, Mister story-poster.
Alright, it sounds like he's saying that he "cares" about the "quality" of the "product".
This might be because he has a "reputation" and he doesn't want to "ruin it".
Any questions?
I never understood why Halo was so head and shoulders above the other Xbox games. What makes it so great compared to other titles in the library?
If the PS3 is released this year, so will Halo 3.
if it's delayed till next year then you won't see Halo 3 till next year, simple as that.
notice the timing of these and the way he words it? "IF gamers want it bad enough then it will be released this year." what If is there to it? Halo 2 sold $100,000,000 in it's first couple of days, is he trying to say that people aren't hyped for Halo anymore?
Babelfish doesn't offer a translation for "Microsoft", but I believe he meant that it will come out this year if it meets everyone's expectations. After all, everyone and their dog is expecting Halo 3 (while I haven't played Halo 2 all the way through, the ending was apparently a complete cliffhanger).
Basically, he's saying that Bungie (or someone) is working on it, and it could be complete this year, but they're going to give it the time it needs to be a "good" FPS.
So they're giving it the treatment that Nintendo is giving Twilight Princess, minus the sad fanboys, which is good, as the XBox 360 dearly needs some hit quality games.
I was at EB Games this weekend and saw a mock-up of a Halo 3 box on the "Coming Soon" shelf. I picked up the box to see if there were any screen shots on the back of the box. There weren't any screenshots, but I did find some valuable marketing intelligence. The back of the box said that Microsoft plans to release Halo 3 the same day as the PS3 comes out in an effort to out-launch Sony.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
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.
It means they don't have a clue if they can finish it on time, but probably not because both of the previous games had historic delays... But please, please, please buy a 360, and don't wait for the PS3.
It could also mean that they would release early if the future of the Xbox360 depended on it. Because we all know there are no real hits on the Xbox360 yet, thus noone is purchasing the console.
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
not a single reason why I should upgrade from my xBox, since I'm not shelling out money for HDTV until 2009 when the prices plummet.
Besides, by then, I'll be able to choose between NR, PS3, and xBox360, with actual real games that aren't just ports or FPS clones.
Wake me up when they ship Katamari on the 360.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"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."
NO! Release a game when it's ready, not when the people want it. Too often, developers are pushing titles out because it's what the public wants right then and now; no more are the days when developers actually released games when they were ready for public consumption. If more developers stick to the "It will come out when it's ready" mantra, we'd have less crap on the market for games these days.
-WeAz
It's rather easy to decode this example of marketing lingo: if the release of Sony's PS3 will take place in 2006, then Halo3 will follow right after, or shortly in advance. Tackling the Playstation launch is the impact he's talking about, is what the rushed XBOX360 launch was all about, so go figure.
Don't know if this will qualify as being ironic (not in Alanis' sense anyway), but in the end the XBOX and Halo fanboys may thank Sony (or blame them, depending on how playable the game will turn out) for Halo...
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
It means no.
Gimme my cookie.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
It depends.
It won't really be a sequel to Halo 2.
If it's the game that everyone is expecting then, yes.
It doesn't even have to be a Halo franchise game - but it will be as good as everyone's vision of Halo 3.
For us it's about making a proper impact on the platform.
We need a great game on the Xbox 360 to show off how pwnzor the system really is.
It has to be something with huge significance, so we won't be rushed.
Even though we don't need it, we're probably going to use the Halo franchise, simply because people expect Halo 3 to be good - but we're designing it with the attitude of "Xbox 360 killer app" instead of "sequel to Halo 2", because that's what we need to produce.
... 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?
This is another reason why I think Sony is trying a different (and more intelligent, IMO) strategy by witholding the release date of the PS3 until shortly before its launch. Currently, Microsoft's waiting around for Sony to pin up a release date, so they can prepare the launch of a huge "must-have" around the same time and undermine the system launch. If Sony just keeps quiet, and then suddenly announces that the PS3 will be launched "next week" (a scenario that I think is quite possible), Microsoft will be caught with their pants down. Everyone's expecting Sony to use the same tactics that they have in the past, but if you look at the current situation, it's much different from any of their previous releases. Both the PS1 and PS2 were the first big systems of their generation (except for the Dreamcast, I know, but Sega was already floundering as a hardware company before then, and were of little concern to Sony). Sony was the guy who could step up and offer something far beyond what was currently on the table, and therefor, they boasted about it for months, even years, before their releases. This is a good strategy when you're the first out of the gate, but its not a very good strategy when you're second, because the other guy has a long time to devise a strategy to undermine your launch. Not only that, but you can't hold people's attention for long periods of time by offering them something far beyond what's currently on the market. This is where the N64 failed. Nintendo talked up the new system for over a year before it's release, while in the meantime, Sony and their cronies put forth some of the greatest gaming opportunities in the history of the industry. When the N64 finally launched, the Playstation's developers had had time to get their skills up to almost on par with the new system, so Nintendo had very little to offer in the way of power.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
It means that it's coming out some time before Duke Nukem Forever ships.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Sounds a lot like Windows back in 1983
Announced to kill the competition
Released as a product three years later with what is obviously not 3 years of work
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0
Yeah, it's more than it looks like at first glance, but still, THREE YEARS? (From the announcement in 1983, not the start of development in 1981.
How to enable garbage collection on a system without protected memory: #define malloc() ((void *) rand())
If you know what that means, I would like to offer you a cookie, because I sure as heck don't.
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Thanks for the cookies.
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A few of the comments on here have been saying that the game will come out on the same day as the PS3. Wouldn't it be smarter, maybe, to release it the day before? Then, everyone will have just bought a game, so they won't see the point of buying a whole new console have this new game here to play. This will cause less initial sales, and after the hype has died down, many of the people who would have bought the PS3 the first day will have decided not to in favor of something else. Just an idea.
By the way, who are we supposed to hate more here, Microsoft or Sony?
12 steps is too long. My ideal plan is: 1) Quit 2) Relapse 3) ??? 4) Profit!
Midway through the game, Master Chef tears off his battle armor and...it's really Duke Nukem in disguise! But wait. What happens to the little orcish imps and the other baddies, then? Where will all the hot chicks in minimalistic clothing come from?
Dead or alive?