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A Bungie with business sense would make Halo 4 and 5 and...
Recently there have been some rumblings that Bungie won't make another Halo game after Halo 3 which appear to be centered around a statement that Marty O'Donnell made in an interview with the BBC. In this interview, Marty says, "We all want Halo to be the great ending to an epic trilogy. We look at what Peter Jackson did with the Lord of the Rings films - which each film bettering the previous one and that is what we are aiming for." Does that mean we won't be seeing another Halo game in the future? To people who understand that making video games is a business, the rumors (which are already half-disproved) that Bungie would end the Halo franchise anytime soon are ridiculous. The first two Halo games combined have sold 14.3 million units. That puts the Halo franchise within the top 30 best-selling game franchises of all time. Without Halo, Microsoft might as well not have bothered with the Xbox; Halo and Halo 2 sold more units than the next six best selling games on the Xbox combined (if you're wondering, these games are Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Fable, GTA: Double Pack, Project Gotham Racing, and Need for Speed: Underground 2). With a Halo movie on the way, and the facts that Halo 2 sold more units than the first and is still the #1 game played on Xbox Live under Bungie's belt, it wouldn't be wrong to say that the Halo franchise is increasing in popularity. The bottom line is that Bungie and Microsoft would have to be stupid to end their most lucrative franchise ever after #3. We don't claim to have any insider information, we don't dispute Marty's statement and we don't deny the possibility that Bungie will create new franchises, but based on pure business logic we'd expect to see at least another two games based on the Halo universe. From a business perspective, for Bungie to dump the Halo franchise after 3 would be sheer stupidity. [Source for sales figures, Image from 1001 Fonts]
Halo faceplate is the real deal
Bungie has confirmed the existence and design of the rumored Halo faceplate. The more perceptive of you have probably realized that the faceplate in question is pictured above (click on it for an embiggened pic). The faceplate will be available sometime in October. Not bad, but as some have pointed out, it doesn't do much for vertically aligned 360s -- unless you enjoy the thought of knocking the Cheif onto his back. So, let's have a show of hands, who's planning on picking one up?
Microsoft talks DirectX 10, Vista and fancy graphics
In a lengthy interview with ExtremeTech, David Blythe and Chris Donahue of Microsoft divulge some of the intricacies inherent in the tenth iteration of DirectX, the API powering much of Vista's gaming OS aspirations. Interestingly, there are several features being implemented that aren't even present in next-gen consoles yet, though the interviewees are quick to point out that, aside from the PC version of Halo 2, there will be very few games in the next few years that specifically require DirectX 10 to run.If talk of unified shaders and procedural rendering gets your heart racing (those vertex buffers are hawt), you'll find the interview pleasing in a multitude of ways. Even if you don't particularly care for the technical jargon, you may still find some merit in pulling back the curtain and seeing just how much thought and effort go into creating the tools necessary for a game developer to realize a specific vision. Of course, that often leads us to wonder which aspect of game design holds the greater influence -- do technical features come about because of the needs of the graphic designer, or does the artist gain new ideas as technology improves?[Via ars technica]
Nice headset cheap. For a good cause too!
Halo.bungie.org reports that Plantronics is currently selling the special edition Halo 2 headset for a paltry $14.95 (USD). This headset normally sells for $49.95 so this is a great deal. To make the deal even better, $1.00 of every purchase will be donated to the Plantronics GameCom United Way Katrina Recovery Fund. Couple the Halo 2 headset with the $8.00 headset adapter from Datel and you've got a steal. It looks like a limited time offer, though. So, go buy one and do some good! [Via HBO]
F$%# (bottle) rocket n00b!
Halo fan FyreWulff has created a replica of the SPNKR rocket launcher to celebrate US independence this year. The launcher -- still a work in progress -- takes on the trademark Halo design, including the "HOLD LIKE THIS" image on the side. Describing his project, FyreWulff said: "...This is not meant to be a 1:1 remake of the Halo rocket launcher. I'm basically "skinning" another (fake!) rocket launcher to look like it, as best as possible." The launcher will be used to fire holiday shells and bottle rockets this 4th of July. Whether you're a Halo fan or not, surely there is no better way to celebrate our country than by blowing up a small part of it. Follow the read link for more pictures. Anybody else have any cool holiday projects? [Via HBO]
Ultimate Halo Fanboy
Bungie.net has posted pictures of fanboy Namloco's Halo dungeon. Juggling his family responsibilities and a full time job, Namloco managed to convert his entire basement into some kind of Halo altar. Adorned with huge Halo posters, action figures, books, and even an oddball skull, the room is a Halo sanctuary. The crown jewel of his obsession is the hand painted mural on the rear wall. The technophiles among you will probably cringe when you see his TV lodged in the fireplace, though. Isn't he worried about soot?
Halo 2 team signs million-dollar deal
And mom said we'd never get anywhere with these games. Gamasutra is reporting that Major League Gaming has just signed the United States' top Halo 2 team -- Final Boss -- for 1 million dollars (cue Dr. Evil). The cash happy organization also signed MTV True Life stud Tsquared to an exclusive contract worth $250,000. According to one of the now filthy rich pro gamers: "It's a huge honor to be part of the first gaming team to get this kind of money," said David "Walshy" Walsh. "This kind of contract just shows how serious MLG is about building the League. Three years ago I never could have imagined that I'd be making more money than my parents playing video games!"This is actually pretty big news. It seems like it won't be much longer before we start to see competitive video gaming as a major TV event or big name players starting to be mentioned in the same breath as today's other sports stars. Our little video game baby seems to have all growns up.
Halo 2 reaches half-billion matchmaking games played milestone
Yesterday, according to Bungie, the 500,000,001st game of Halo 2 was played on Xbox Live. To be clear, this number does not include player-sessions or games that were lost because Bungie.net was down, or other technical issues. While it's certainly an achievement Bungie should be proud of, it's hardly a surprise. 6.4 million units of the game were sold in less than three months. Even if another copy was never sold, and even if only 5% of those 6.4 million units were associated with an Xbox Live account (that's 320,000 unique players) -- and given that the game has been in release for 573 days -- each of those 320,000 players would only need to average (roughly) 3 matchmaking games per day. C'mon, the Joystiq crew clocks those numbers before breakfast. Let us know when you hit 1 billion, Bungie. Then we'll be impressed. (We kid, we kid.) [Thanks, Shizzle]
Bungie's cord
Nowadays when you think Bungie, you think the Halo series. Thinking about Halo also implies Microsoft and the Xbox: the first game sold nearly as many copies as the Xbox itself, the second game is one of the most played online console games of all time and the as-yet unreleased third title has more hype surrounding it than a Star Wars movie, a Steve Jobs keynote and a season finale episode of Lost all rolled into one. So for some people it's a great surprise to find that if you go back ten years and look at Bungie's history, you'll find that the company started developing games on toy computers Macs.Tuncer Deniz, founder of Mac gaming fansite Inside Mac Games, was project lead on Myth II and from this position he got to see first hand how Bungie founders Alex Seropian and Jason Jones worked. In an interesting posting on his blog, he talks about one situation where Jason refused to back down and add resource harvesting to Myth II - the end result was a game that was much more fun because it ignored the established norm set up by Command & Conquer and its clones. Jason's focus towards a goal of making the game as fun as possible has meant that Myth II is still a popular online game today, eight years after its release and several years after Bungie pulled the support plug.Finally, for your viewing pleasure, Tuncer managed to dig up a "home video" of Bungie's Marathon team (five or six guys) fooling around and swearing (ohmygosh!) in front of the camera. It's strange to think that the developers in that video had no idea that in under a decade they would release two titles that would sell a combined 14 million units, in the process defining Microsoft's entry into console gaming.
Banned cheaters grovel before Bungie
Bungie recently publicized a series of emails sent by banned cheaters desperate to get back onto Halo 2's multiplayer servers. Here's a snippet from our personal favorite:"Please! I'll destroy my mods. i'll snich on some people that r getting away with mods on matchmaking! Just PLEASE appeal my ban. i want to play matchmaking again. i want to be clean for the arrival of Halo 3! c'mon! i didn't know what i was getting into when i got mods from my friend and from [website censored]! you have to believe me!!!"[Thanks, Sense; via 8-bit Ninja]
Was Microsoft's vision for Vanguard Vista exclusive? [Update 1]
Sigil Games, developers of the upcoming MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, shocked quite a few people by announcing that they were buying the publishing rights from Microsoft so that they could co-publish the title with Sony Online Entertainment. We've already provided some speculation about what the "varying visions and direction for the title's development" between Microsoft and Sigil were, but a tipster (who asked to remain unnamed) from E3 provides another possible reason for the split. Our tipster claims to have spoken to several developers working at Sigil and at another development company that has Microsoft as a publisher -- we'd say the meat of the tip is on the same level of credibility as someone saying that the Government is tapping your phone (yes, I made a political joke -- the first comment to judge my political affiliation wins my apathy!).According to our tipster, Microsoft intended to make Vanguard a Vista-exclusive title and Sigil didn't like it. The fact that XP users wouldn't have been able to play the game (limiting the user base quite drastically) and Windows Vista's notoriously slippery release date being the obvious disadvantages of such a move on the part of Sigil. If true, the motivation for Microsoft would have been that the title would be the first MMO to take advantage of Live Anywhere, Microsoft's online games platform which blends Xbox 360, PC and mobile phone devices: more Vista sales = profit!It's credible that Microsoft wanted to use Vanguard as the first MMO to work with Live Anywhere but that Sigil didn't want its game to be Microsoft's guinea pig and therefore bought the publishing rights. With Vista around the corner, Microsoft wants to provide as much incentive for gamers to upgrade and by making big name games playable exclusively on Vista it can gain that incentive. At the very least we get a kick out of discussing the vague PR explanations of the reasons behind leaving a game's publisher during the beta stage. It's impossible for us to believe that simple, meaningless "varying visions" caused this massive, late in the game move.Update 1: Brad McQuaid (Sigil CEO, creator of MMORPG Everquest) responds by saying "false rumor", but Joystiq commentator Jack Slater cleverly rebukes: "personally I would just deny everything if I was him, as there is no legal obligation for me to tell the truth on the forums but there is likely a legal obligation to keep the reason for leaving Microsoft undisclosed." Meanwhile, Ctrl+Alt+Del daydreams about how the meeting between McQuiad, Microsoft and Sony went. Funny stuff.
Windows Vista delayed until 2007... taking Halo 2 with it?
Microsoft's announced that Windows Vista will be delayed until January of next year for most consumers. Some businesses will get an early crack at the OS this November, however.Other than Vista's touted advantages for gamers (and its enormous technical requirements), we care about a delay because certain games may not release, run, or run "optimally" with anything less than Vista, including Halo 2 for the PC, MS Flight Simulator X, and CryTek's Crysis ("the first DirectX 10-enabled game" for the new OS).Of course, release plans, optimizations, and compatibilities could change from here till the end of 2006, but Microsoft will probably try to support its upcoming OS upgrade with as many titles as it can in the coming year. Vista was supposed to spark a new renaissance in PC gaming after its long and drawn-out development grind. At least corporate testers will get to check out the new version of Minesweeper before Christmas.
