Slashdot Mirror
Halo 2 PC Vista Only, With Exclusive Content
Via 1up and Kotaku, news from the most recent Bungie weekly update. Work on Halo 2 PC is continuing apace, but players looking forward to the game should know a few things. The game looks to be Vista only and, despite the promise of the 'Live Anywhere' concept, will not be interconnected in the way that the Shadowrun game will be. The Bungie update clarifies on these announcements. From the article: "Will I need a DirectX 10 graphics card to run Halo 2 on PC? No. Although you will require Windows Vista to play Halo 2 on a PC, you won't necessarily need to upgrade your graphics card to do it. Halo 2, like some other Vista titles, will work just fine on a wide range of graphics cards, including DX9 cards. We will provide far more detailed minimum hardware requirements closer to the game's completion."
Oh dear, I just gave them an idea.
Fuck.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Up yours, xbox owners!
... wait, Vista will cost me more money than an Xbox. :( Bah.
Funny I thought that this was the beginning of Web 2.0, and the end of forced upgrades.
Guess I was reading the wrong news?
So, does that mean that Duke Nukem Forever will also be vista only?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
So... When is the Vista emulator coming out?
Fuck 'em!
It took them forever to get H1 to PC, so by the time H2 arrives, Vista would already be the only OS to support such ancient hardware.
Surefire way to get the Halo fanboys to get Vista that much faster.
Weren't we JOKING about them making Halo 3 Vista-only to boost sales? Now they're gonna do this with freaking Halo 2? I don't even like the Halo series, but I see no reason that it wouldn't be able to run on XP, other than the fact that M$ wants to improve sales of Vista. Dammit, Microsoft must be reading Slashdot... Stop giving them ideas, guys!
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Everything else about the game was a distinct case of Meh on the PC. It just didn't compete with PC born titles. Part of it may have been due to its age (the x-box conversion took ages) and part was that it never delivered on its original promises.
I just never got the idea that Halo PC had a big impact.
As for coupling it to vista. Well that is just taking the piss. A 2.5 year old game + time until vista launches having such a minimum requirement can't be anything but fake.At least pull such a stunt with a more recent game, say the upcoming Halo 3.
MS really could set it self up for a gigantic fall with vista. Have they forgotten Windows ME? Or are they remembering ME and are this time determined to ensure people can't just skip an upgrade?
The game companies making their game Vista only must really be certain of MS success. Not only are they tying their game to an OS that keeps getting delayed but one that might not be picked up. Remember Vista is launching at a bad time. Gamers will have the PS3 and Wii competing for their dollars. Can you afford to buy the consoles AND a new PC?
Why is bungie still called bungie? Shouldn't they just be called MS game division?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"The game looks to be Vista only..."
Great, looks like I now have two things to download via bittorrent instead of just one.
...that these practices are not criminal according to US law. Seems to me this is corporate greed at ist best.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I playd Halo and for a while it was good. But then it became repetitive and boring. The same room-design over and over again. Like they neded 10 additional hours of play-time and just repliacted a 10 minute segment of the game to get it. Needless to say I did not finish it.
I doubt Halo2 will be worth an upgrade to Vista. I also doubt an upd=grade to Vista will be a godd idea before end of 2008 or so.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Guess I won't be able to play Halo 2 on PC. ;) Not wasting my money on a glorified XP just to play ONE game. Maybe Cedega will get around Vista. ;)
I'm curious what they'll do to insure it only runs on Vista. I wonder if some good hackers could patch it to run on XP?
And while I'm here, Halo 2 and Shadowrun? Christ almighty. Halo PC was one of the most atrocious ports that I've had the misfortune of dealing with, and Shadowrun is shaping up to be an ugly, me-too squad-based FPS. Some great incentives there, guys. Really.
MS is actually kind of shooting themselves in the foot with XBox. Not only have they burned up an insane amount of money on the two XBoxes, but they are helping to encourage people to divide their time away from Windows gaming to console gaming. There have been many, many game consoles in the past, made by numerous companies. There is still a fair amount of competition in the console market. But, there has only been one OS that is popular for PC gaming, MS Windows.
I can't see this "Vista only" requirement pushing anyone but a super-hardcore Halo fan off the fence.
Yeah, I don't know about you, but I got HOURS of entertainment out of sharing the goatse experience with friends and relatives (even grandma got a good laugh at her best friend's expense!). But I played Halo for about five minutes plus setup time before I realized it was severly overhyped. But Goatse is legendary and deserves it. I'm 100% serious.
Let me say, who gives a crap? Halo for the PC basically sucked and was never popular among FPS fans.
This whole DX10 being Vista only is BS. They are royally screwing over XP users and especially anyone who has bought a new GPU recently. Developers can't be happy with MS for pulling a stunt like this. Must be nice to always have that monopoly to fall back on when you need to force unwanted changes down people's throats.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Price of your next Vista upgrade: £100-200 ?
:-) There are lots more exciting game prospects than Halo 2 on the PC and only Microsoft can afford to tie their games to it -- sounds like it's a exercise for the new API & tech demo for developers rather than an enticing prospect for gamers.
... this awkward twilight for "current gen" games consoles will make life very cheap for a few months!
Price of second-hand XBox + Halo 2 at Game: £60
I think they made a mistake and meant to say Halo 3
If you've not got one yet, old XBoxes are a steal at the moment! Also Gamecubes are only £30, and you won't waste your investment on any games either
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
The game wont make me upgrade. By the time I do move to Vista Halo 4 will be coming out. Probably wont play that game either.
Well, Microsoft just admitted that Vista sucks.
Because, you see, if Vista was as good as it's supposed to be, it would stand on its own and sell itself. It would be so clearly better than XP or MacOS or even Linux that there would be no question that Vista is The Thing to Have For Your New PC.
But no. Microsoft is telling us that Vista is so appallingly bad that not only can't it stand on its own, it needs to lean on an exclusive binding with Halo 2 to be able to support itself in the marketplace.
There is no rational basis for tying Halo 2 to Vista other than the fact that Vista sucks. Halo 2 does not use DirectX 10 functionality, so Vista is not required. Further, by tying Halo 2 to Vista, Halo 2 sales will be depressed since, rounded to the nearest million, there are zero copies of Vista out there. Therefore, tying Halo 2 to Vista is being done not to drive Halo 2, but to drive Vista. And Vista wouldn't need driving... Unless Vista sucks.
QED.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
...when the PC world actually gave two shits about Halo?
I'm still playing Call of Duty!
Your points contradict each other.
The PC port of Halo2 is using Vista functionality not present on XP. These would be the "Vista has no business being anything less than digital sex" type of features.
But this is slashdot. Everyone here thinks that operating systems don't change/add APIs over time and that every program ever written can run on any platform with a simple recompile.
Idiots.
System requirements for some Apple non-pro software...
Are there good reasons for these system requirements?
This isn't really an Apple vs. Microsoft issue, but still interesting.
I've read that future versions of Mac OS X for Intel architecture may include a Windows application compatibility subsystem. Will this be compatible with Windows Vista exclusive apps?
Fuck Bungie, and fuck Microsoft.
The Bungie CEO and Bill Gates can jack each other off all they want. I'm not upgrading, they can both kiss my ass.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
The big win for Halo/2 on the XBox was the split screen coop. Me and a mate played right through both, and they were awesome. I've been playing FPSes since W3D, but the console coop experience is probably the best gaming I've had (BF1942 stole 6 months of my life though :)
"Everything louder than everything else"
As of the last article I read, Microsoft Flight Simulator X is not going to be DirectX 10 and will indeed NOT require Vista. It will instead have optional enhancements that will make it better on the new OS.
This proves that supporting both OSes is possible and that Microsoft isn't doing it on Halo 2 because they simply don't want to.
you've never player golden eye?
Who cares about this? PC FPS games like Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Quake, Battlefield, Doom, FEAR... you name it, they're all much better than Halo. Besides, by the time Vista's out, we'll have Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, which will make Battlefield and Halo totally obsolete.
I can understand that Halo's popular on the XBox by people who don't know what they're missing out on on the PC, but why the hell would any PC gamer give half a s*** about Halo 2 on the PC, especially after how terribly unoptimised the Halo 1 port was?
fuck you microsoft, and fuck your little dog@!
My list. First it was HL2 because of Steam, my slow network connection, and the whole hassle of DRM on a game I paid for. Next up, Halo 2. Vista only? Why? Is there some legitimate technical reason? Let me guess -- probably some new DRM scheme only enabled by Vista. I can't think of any other reason why it wouldn't be able to work on XP.
There soon won't be a big-name game on the market that is of interest.
Serious Sam split screen co-op on PC is soooo much better.
Anecdotal evidence, but:
Me+friend playing Halo co-op - bored after 4 hour session, I think the identical corridors did it.
Halo 2 - 6 hours, playing as an Elite sucked.
Serious Sam on PC - stayed up way past dawn (I think 8 or 9 hours), completed it all in one go.
Plus, on a PC, you can actually see what's happening on the screen - half resolution on a TV is hard to use.
Microsoft is desperate...
Despite all the naysayers, most of you will run out and pirate a copy of Vista just to play Halo 2. I mean, you bought the Xbox and Xbox360 simply to play Halo, at least you will be able to pirate a copy of Vista to play it as well.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
There will be a hack to disable this a few days after the release. Don't get all whiny about it.
Bungie still hasn't said whether or not they'll port Halo 2 to OS X. If they don't, then they have really, truly sold out and lost whatever shred of decency they may have had left. Bungie got started doing games on the Mac, then moved into the Windows world. Gnop, Operation: Desert Storm, Minotaur, Pathways into Darkness, Marathon, Maraton 2, Marathon Infinity...all exclusively Mac, except for Marathon 2, which was later ported. Now they're not even throwing a bone to the very people that put them where they are now. Fucking despicable greedy sellout bastards.
Remember when the Xbox was first announced and the "big thing" was that it would be super-simple to port games from Xbox -> PC and vice-versa?
I can see why they would delay the release of this game for business reasons, but they're blaming it on technical difficulties. What's going on in Redmond?
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
Microsoft has promised fans of the Halo series that the exclusive content for Halo 2 on Windows Vista will be an ending.
We have this quote from the Microsoft's game division formerly known as Bungie: "With the new technologies available to us in Windows Vista we can bring gamers the actual ending to the game that we envisioned instead of simply fading to credits in the middle of the story."
It was also revealed that players will need a monitor and video card with HDCP technology to actually view this new ending. "We believe that gamers will demand this new technology from manufacturers, probably in some sort of online petition."
At least they are trying this crap with Halo 2 and not a good PC FPS. Let's hope it doesn't work out too well for them so they don't do it with something us PC fans actually care about.