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."

Comments

Thanks, Microsoft!

[PSXer]

Is there any reason for such a requirement other than forcing people who want to play Halo 2 on PC to get Vista? Might as well require people to get Office while you're at it!

Oh dear, I just gave them an idea.

Exclusive Content?

[The MAZZTer]

Up yours, xbox owners!

... wait, Vista will cost me more money than an Xbox. :( Bah.

Re:Exclusive Content?

[Joe The Dragon]

The Exclusive Content may be BSOD's

Oh man!

[MrShaggy]

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?

Re:Oh man!

[Donniedarkness]

No, I believe that DNF is slated to be released on Windows Apology, Microsoft's next OS after Vista.

Re:Oh man!

[ichigo 2.0]

So, does that mean that Duke Nukem Forever will also be vista only?

Nope, by the time DNF comes out Microsoft will have dropped support for legacy OS's like Vista!

Re:Fanboys

[MrShaggy]

Kind of when Doom 3 came out and veryone rished out to get the best video card. Doom3: 70$ nVIDia top-of-the-line-card 400$; The look on everyones face when they realised that the game is played in the dark? PRICELESS!!

Wait a second...

[Donniedarkness]

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!

Re:Wait a second...

[cgenman]

Weren't we JOKING about them making Halo 3 Vista-only to boost sales? Now they're gonna do this with freaking Halo 2?

Halo is Microsoft's new mythical moneymaker. When their games division needs a boost to help their rather terrible margins, or they need to push a new system, they'll lean on Bungee to release whatever it is they have and call it the next Halo.

It's kind of sad, really. Halo is a great series and Bungee is a great developer, but they're almost commodotizing Halo. Not finishing 2? It's like the Legacy of Kain... an amazing game that really hurt the series because they released it unfinished. At least Halo 2's multiplayer was solid.

MS is going to find that you can't milk a series too much before it simply goes dry. If you don't earn each and every sale, you can coast for one or two iterations but then it all goes away.

Re:Wait a second...

[JFMulder]

MS is going to find that you can't milk a series too much before it simply goes dry

Depends... have you ever heard of a game called Street Fighter 2? Or 3?

And who cares?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Halo did do something very nice that every FPS game should copy. Give grenades their own controls so you can throw them with your main weapon equipped. Brilliant.

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?

Re:And who cares?

[ceoyoyo]

Why is bungie still called bungie? Shouldn't they just be called MS game division?

Because when they wander too far afield they get snapped back by a big semi-elastic cable tied around their ankles?

Re:And who cares?

[demon]

Why is bungie still called bungie? Shouldn't they just be called MS game division?

Because Microsoft still wants people to believe that Bungie still has a shred of independence. I'd say that this pretty well proves that they do not - if they did, this (the fantasy that a port of a now several years old repetitive sequel to a repetitive shooter targeted for an as-yet-unreleased OS being just the thing to push people to buy the OS and new hardware to boot) would have been laughed right out of the board room. Microsoft just needs to end the facade.

Re:And who cares?

[mrchaotica]

I only hope drm isn't that bad.

This negates all the improvements you just listed, and more.

Not to mention that they shouldn't be bothering with DirectX at all, but instead should be implementing a standard like OpenGL, etc., shouldn't have broken IE in the first place, and shouldn't need an anti-spyware tool since it's only because of the fundamental flaws in the OS that spyware exists anyway!

Re:Two words:

[Arker]

You know folks, if people will quit BUYING this kind of schlock they'll eventually quit making it.

I'm more interested...

[Bieeanda]

In when non-MS games will start to require DX10. I really don't care for Halo, so I'm not concerned about it being a Vista-only title. The real fun will be when DX10 comes out, and developers will have to start worrying about whether to risk alienating customers by using it exclusively, or forego any improvements it brings in order to stick with the widely accepted (and not Vista-exclusive) DX9. This isn't like DVD-only games, where the push came at the cost of drives that had already dropped to the price of an average game, or the performance gains brought by laying out a few hundred for a new video card-- it's paying several hundred bucks for a new OS (while XP is still very much supported) and pretty much having to flatten and reinstall in order to play a blasted game in the first place.

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.

Re:I'm more interested...

[Mistshadow2k4]

Would you trade a market of 95% of all Windows-users for even 50%? And how long do you think it'll take before Vista hits 50%? We (nerds) know that Vista isn't really that much of an improvement over XP now and the average user doesn't, but they will as soon as people they know get it -- and are likely disappointed unless they're upgrading from 98.

Let's rehash Vista for a moment:
1. Aero: You can make XP look just like Aero right now for free; just go look at softpedia.com or download.com.
2. The sidebar (is that even still on Vista?): desktop sidebar works even on Win 2k. And then's there the Google Desktop.
3. Better security: You'd be better off sticking with Win 2k or XP and getting the free version of Win Patrol. More security and it uses less than 5 mb of Ram to run in the background -- how much memory is Vista going to require again?
4. DirectX 10: It'll be almost useless for a long time. No game company is going to trade the market of almost all Windows-users for the Vista-users market exclusively. I predict that when games get more advanced they will either use OpenGL or even program what the game needs into the game itself (which likely won't be a permanent upgrade to your system).

Those are its pluses! Consider the biggest negative of all: 8 different versions, each costing more than the last. Is everyone going to rush out and buy a copy of Vista when the version they can afford has less features than the copy of XP they already have? Most who do so would by mistake.... and they won't be very quiet about how they feel they got screwed either. Personally, I think the 8 versions thing is what is going to be the biggest detriment to selling it. MS is trying to force everyone to pay through the nose for Windows and a great many simply will not. MS has forgotten that their target market is cheap; if they weren't a lot more of them would be using Macs (and I'm no Apple fangirl by any means, so don't take it that way).

Pirate Vista? A lot of them won't even bother with that when they find out from folks who have it that it's not really that much of an improvement over XP (from a user's standpoint) and requires powerful, expensive hardware -- which a lot of people simply don't have even now. You can't download hardware over p2p so Vista will be useless to many, who aren't going to upgrade without a compelling reason to do so. And what complelling reason will there be? MS's own games? That's not good enough for most, not so long as there are a lot of games that still support XP. No, I think Microsoft's only real hope lies with companies like Dell, who will sell pre-built computers with Vista. And guess how happy those people are going to be when they find out that they have to pay do much exta for features? To summarize, I think word of mouth alone will do a lot to prevent Vista's widespread adoption -- it will cost too much to have anything beyond the basics, most hardware can't even utilize it and hardware that can won't be all that common for another couple of years. For all that inconvenience Vista Premium should have a boatload of great features, but it's apparently not going to. Even with all that aside it would be very foolish for a game company to go Vista-only because the Vista market share is going to be too small. And if Vista bombs they certainly won't. Even if it is suceesful, its market share is still going to be low enough compared to previous versions of Windows that marketing games to it exclusively just wouldn't be profitable enough, especially since OpenGL can be used instead.

Come to think of it, maybe Vista will do more to push OpenGL than anything else. Bonus! Go MS! :-D

Re:I'm more interested...

[Kazzahdrane]

Of course, all Microsoft need to do is convince Blizzard to make the second WoW expansion Vista-only and they'll instantly get huge numbers of people upgrading to the new OS :P

Economics

[mattbee]

Price of your next Vista upgrade: £100-200 ?

Price of second-hand XBox + Halo 2 at Game: £60

I think they made a mistake and meant to say Halo 3 :-) 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.

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 ... this awkward twilight for "current gen" games consoles will make life very cheap for a few months!

Microsoft Admits: Vista Isn't Worth It

[ewhac]

You'd think that, with the enormous amount of prior art out there, and the amount of time and money Microsoft has had to design and develop Vista, that it would completely and utterly kick ass, from boot logo to shutdown. I mean, there are so many ideas out there, and Microsoft has had so much time to play with all of them and select the best ones, that Vista has no business being anything less that digitally optimized sex.

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