Microsoft starting a New Fight with Halo 4 - Part 1
Microsoft desperately needs Halo 4 to be a huge success if there is to be any hope for its upcoming Next Generation Console.
As we approach the end of the current console generation and await the glorious new console announcements from the big three, Microsoft (MS) is planning to send the Xbox 360 (360) out in style with Halo 4 which will probably be the only halo game of the
new trilogy on the Xbox 360. MS is banking on the success of Halo 4 to sell its upcoming next generation console.
Over the years Microsoft has put all of its eggs in one basket as Kinect became the main focus of the MS Xbox division. The 360 which gained popularity because of all the first party core games and exclusives, finds itself with only a handful of them left.
MS adopted a different strategy this generation when compared to Sony and Nintendo. Instead of spending millions towards new first party Intellectual Properties (IPs), they started paying off third party developers for their exclusive games or just timed
exclusive games or downloadable content (DLC).
Having big studios like Epic Games with ‘Gears of War’, Remedy with the cult classic ‘Alan Wake’, Activision with timed exclusive content for the ‘Call of Duty’ games and Bethesda for the timed exclusive content for ‘Fallout’ and ‘The Elder Scrolls’ series,
ensured that the 360 will continue to stay competitive in the American and the European markets.
The downside of this is that Ms doesn’t own the Ip’s and they could lose them to other platforms if the original developers feel that they aren’t doing so well on the 360. Mass Effect is one such example. Built exclusively for the 360 but later was released
on PC after EA’s acquisition of Bioware. The second game in the series Mass Effect 2, which is considered one of the best Action RPG of all time, was multi-platform (PC, 360) from the start and later ended up on the PS3. A Wii-U version is also in the works.
Third party exclusive content is cost effective but it doesn’t leave anything for MS to fall back on for the next generation, except Halo. This game is what made the first the Xbox and Halo 3 saved the Xbox 360 when gamers were bored with replaying Halo
2 and Gears of War 1. Now MS needs the franchise yet again to push forward its upcoming console.
The problem here is that MS no longer owns Bungie, who were the original developers of the Halo games. MS has created a new first party studio ‘343 Industries’ (343i) to look after the Halo brand. What this means is that this time Bungie will not be at the
helm of Halo 4 but a new studio and the question pops up: Will 343i’s Halo 4 live up to the previous Halo games made by Bungie?
“Every single person who came to work here came to work here because they wanted to work on Halo. And you couldn’t even say that at Bungie,”
said Frank O’ Connor from 343 Industries. This does give the fans some hope that the franchise is in good hands as most of the developers at 343i are hardcore fans of the Halo franchise and understand what the fans want. Frank O' Connor himself is
an ex-Bungie employee who moved to 343i because he loved Halo so much.
Continued in Part 2
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