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[bitbydeath]

Total clusterfuck if true. I posted the full translation here: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/head...o-join-xbox-publishing.1650227/post-267367749

343 Industries isn't going away, however, the "Game Development" part of the studio is going to fade away.

Wow!

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

I think Xbox is dead if this Activision deal don't go through. Good riddance. I hope Apple, Amazon or some other player enters the frey and actually contribute.

this is true-ish.

Xbox is desperate for content. (failing to reach Game Pass numbers expectations two years in a row) and their management is poop.

what else are they going to do?.....Make Third Party deals? Sure....But the value of those deals is not as good as owning such content/IP. It bleeds money!!!!!

but the deal is going to be approved....and then, MS actually will need to be good at management to fix all the bullshit inside acti-blizz.

yep. MS is going to have a very, very hard time ahead either way.

 

[MikeM]

Killed single player DLC??? Wtf… come on man.

 

[feynoob]

Knowing our luck it will be The Initiative

much better than current management of 343. At least that studio has top class talents.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

I think Xbox is dead if this Activision deal don't go through. Good riddance. I hope Apple, Amazon or some other player enters the frey and actually contribute.

So ignorant it should be bannable.

 

[feynoob]

I think Xbox is dead if this Activision deal don't go through. Good riddance. I hope Apple, Amazon or some other player enters the frey and actually contribute.

That is some reach down there. Keep dreaming.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

Ummmm.... what?

I repeat. Halo was never top dog of a damn thing. Barely anybody owned an xbox compared to a PS2. Halo's best launch numbers in those years were long eclipsed by Halo 4 and Halo 5's launch numbers. Halo had zero damn shooter competition on console. People who played counter-strike 1.5/1.6 on PC laughed at Halo's competitive scene, and rightfully so. Counter-Strike was just plain superior. It's why I could never get into Halo MP for years. The skill differences, the coordinated nade assignments, the team strategies, the HLTV matches. It was night and day in both drama, excitement and overall skill.

COD 4 the year it launched ate Halo 3's lunch. I've said that for years, and knew the moment that game hit the way it did people wouldn't keep talking about Halo the same way and I was correct. COD 4 despite just being a "mere military shooter" had the more epic feeling and exciting campaign despite Halo having what should have been a huge advantage in its space sci-fi, super soldier vs alien concept. Yet Halo 3 for as good a game as it was at the time greatly underdelivered on its promises. Cortana's story was a joke compared to what was teased. You just got her back and it was like nothing changed at all. Halo 3 on its reveal was literally called last gen looking by many that watched the first reveal gameplay trailer.

The moment COD started lighting it up you saw Halo starting to get affected. Fortnite? PubG? Apex Legends? Warzone? There's simply a lot more competition in the console space nowadays, so Halo benefitted from a lack of choices. Now that there are more choices, especially choices offtering a kind of experience in the form of battle royale that Halo does not yet offer, you're seeing players respond to that. Halo Infinite plays better than any Halo game to come before it, and it barely matters. It literally plays better than most of the games out today and it still doesn't matter because gamers like what they like. Halo's formula while popular is by today's standards more niche in nature.

Counter-Strike's 1.5/1.6 competitive scene blew away what Halo had for years. People have rose colored lenses of what Halo actually was in those early xbox years. Less than 25 million people had a damn Xbox console. Stop letting the big launch events and glitz and glammer fool you. Halo 4 and Halo 5 both had far bigger and more successful launches than Halo CE and Halo 2 and the numbers prove it. They just launched in a much more competitively stacked console space.

 

[ByWatterson]

I actually think this is great?

Keep plugging away at an MP that is truthful in a good spot right now, and seed the next generation(s) of Halo ideas to others.

The MP is great, but the release formula is inert. Inject some life, hold the studio accountable, keep fans happy with bits of content every few months.

 

[feynoob]

I repeat. Halo was never top dog of a damn thing. Barely anybody owned an xbox compared to a PS2. Halo's best launch numbers in those years were long eclipsed by Halo 4 and Halo 5's launch numbers. Halo had zero damn shooter competition on console. People who played counter-strike 1.5/1.6 on PC laughed at Halo's competitive scene, and rightfully so. Counter-Strike was just plain superior. It's why I could never get into Halo MP for years. The skill differences, the coordinated nade assignments, the team strategies, the HLTV matches. It was night and day in both drama, excitement and overall skill.

COD 4 the year it launched ate Halo 3's lunch. I've said that for years, and knew the moment that game hit the way it did people wouldn't keep talking about Halo the same way and I was correct. COD 4 despite just being a "mere military shooter" had the more epic feeling and exciting campaign despite Halo having what should have been a huge advantage in its space sci-fi, super soldier vs alien concept. Yet Halo 3 for as good a game as it was at the time greatly underdelivered on its promises. Cortana's story was a joke compared to what was teased. You just got her back and it was like nothing changed at all. Halo 3 on its reveal was literally called last gen looking by many that watched the first reveal gameplay trailer.

The moment COD started lighting it up you saw Halo starting to get affected. Fortnite? PubG? Apex Legends? Warzone? There's simply a lot more competition in the console space nowadays, so Halo benefitted from a lack of choices. Now that there are more choices, especially choices offtering a kind of experience in the form of battle royale that Halo does not yet offer, you're seeing players respond to that. Halo Infinite plays better than any Halo game to come before it, and it barely matters. It literally plays better than most of the games out today and it still doesn't matter because gamers like what they like. Halo's formula while popular is by today's standards more niche in nature.

Counter-Strike's 1.5/1.6 competitive scene blew away what Halo had for years. People have rose colored lenses of what Halo actually was in those early xbox years. Less than 25 million people had a damn Xbox console. Stop letting the big launch events and glitz and glammer fool you. Halo 4 and Halo 5 both had far bigger and more successful launches than Halo CE and Halo 2 and the numbers prove it. They just launched in a much more competitively stacked console space.

Halo is what started Xbox movement.
Sales were never the defining period for halo, but how popular it was.

Without halo, Xbox wouldnt have taken off.

 

[Gambit2483]

For those in denial, a bit of nostalgia :

 

[Hot5pur]

Didn't think the game needed more single player DLCs. It was a pretty solid experience and co-op was a lot of fun.
Seems the studio struggled too much - was quite a big complex project and probably too ambitious, also covid, and probably lots of pressure from management.

 

[Ansphn]

or Microsoft and Activision simply out of spite make a full exclusivity deal for all games for a couple of years.

I mean, what could Sony do again that? pretty much nothing right?

Microsoft could finance development of games and in return get all of them exclusively.

that could turn out worse for Sony than if they just had bought them.

Not going to happen. 2 trillion dollar companies don't do stuff out of spite. They do stuff for profit. Nadella would lose his job once they see him do stuff like that with investors money.

 

[Ansphn]

So ignorant it should be bannable.

So it's ignorant and I deserve a ban cause you don't agree with it? Did what I say hurt your feelings?

 

[FritzJ92]

Good, its time for Xbox to invent some new franchises. What other franchises have they invented in the past 10 years outside of Forza Horizon.

Look how great Sea of Theives did. Give them a break, like a real break and let a team work on reinventing the brand while you put something fresh out. I

 

[Nydius]

I still think we're going to see a future of Halo where it's just a F2P, microtransaction laden, multiplayer only affair -- no more Master Chief, no more single player. The amount of people they'd alienate by getting rid of campaign pales in comparison to the amount of whales they'd get with a SPARTAN based, multiplayer only title. They learned that with Infinite and the amount of people who played the multiplayer but never touched the campaign.

Or I could be wrong and the whole thing could end up in the shitter. Either is possible, especially given Microsoft's track record of studio mismanagement. I think back to everything they owned from 2002 to 2012 and think to myself: Where could Xbox be if they had funded and promoted the studios and IPs they had instead of becoming laser focused on Halo, Gears, Forza and timed COD exclusive DLC? At one point, Microsoft could have easily had a stable of exclusives across all genres that could have gone head-to-head with Sony -- platformers, racers, shooters, family games, party games -- but they bungled every single one of them to the point where they're now reliant on buying large, established, publishers and their studios.

 

[Moonjt9]

It’s absolutely unbelievable how badly Microsoft screwed Halo up. It was the face of Xbox. Imagine Nintendo botching Mario so badly… it’s that bad of a scenario.

How anyone can defend Microsoft leadership after all the years of broken promises and disappointments like Halo is beyond me. Absolute disgrace to gaming.

 

[The Tourmaline Gorilla]

This is the smartest decision they could have made, and should have made this decision earlier. Obviously, for some reason (someone, or some group of people is responsible for it) 343i couldn't manage their finances, goals and resources. Maybe they overshot their ambitions. Maybe Ross' ambitions were just sweet talk to garner large sums of money, and diverting it towards her own means... Either way, I'm happy to see this.

Halo, the franchise and the story, needs a huge reset. Ross was completely out of touch, which is evident in the titles she released under her ship. Good. Fucking. Riddance.

Hopefully, in the next coming years, the world gets a Halo game that restores it to its now lost glory.

PS - Fuck 343i!

 

[The Tourmaline Gorilla]

I still think we're going to see a future of Halo where it's just a F2P, microtransaction laden, multiplayer only affair -- no more Master Chief, no more single player. The amount of people they'd alienate by getting rid of campaign pales in comparison to the amount of whales they'd get with a SPARTAN based, multiplayer only title. They learned that with Infinite and the amount of people who played the multiplayer but never touched the campaign.

Or I could be wrong and the whole thing could end up in the shitter. Either is possible, especially given Microsoft's track record of studio mismanagement. I think back to everything they owned from 2002 to 2012 and think to myself: Where could Xbox be if they had funded and promoted the studios and IPs they had instead of becoming laser focused on Halo, Gears, Forza and timed COD exclusive DLC? At one point, Microsoft could have easily had a stable of exclusives across all genres that could have gone head-to-head with Sony -- platformers, racers, shooters, family games, party games -- but they bungled every single one of them to the point where they're now reliant on buying large, established, publishers and their studios.

I think you're right. We might get a campaign starring the Master Chief again, in the far future (hopefully), but for now, this will be Microsoft's means of a cash grab, multi-player, steady drip revenue stream, selling to the masses who just want to run and gun, mindlessly. Sad, but as they say...follow the money.

 

[DaleinCalgary]

People still think Phil knows what he is doing.

 

[Nydius]

Sad, but as they say...follow the money

Yep. It pains me to admit it because I love Halo campaigns but it's clearly bigger as a multiplayer property. They'd make more money using the Infinite framework to keep the game as a multiplayer only title. I imagine the cost of developing the single player side of the game has to be astronomical. Multiplayer much less so, and keep Forge around for the community to support the game in between updates.

 

[The Tourmaline Gorilla]

People still think Phil knows what he is doing.

I honestly think this is the best and most obvious direction they should go, until they get some people or a team with real passion for the franchise, with new ideas, proper management and visionary leaders who can manage funds, resources, time, expectations and are shooting for the highest quality _out the gate_ (not through updates) ...and knows what "quality" actually means.

Otherwise, they'll be doing what they've been doing - pissing away money, making a lazy manager with no vision (Ross) rich, while furthering the decline of the Halo brand/name.

My only problem with Phil, in regards to Halo, is that it took this fucking long for him (and whoever else at the top) to realise this, and make the changes needed. 343i needed a big reset, a long time ago.

 

[3liteDragon]

ABK’s gonna be in good hands I see.

 

[bitbydeath]

creating new contents for Campaign + was not enough profitable for them to sustain, so they decided to completely halt them in favor on focusing on MP

Interested to hear if this has further ramifications outside of Halo.
EG. Elder Scrolls DLC

 

[NikuNashi]

I get this sense we are witnessing the start of Xbox downfall.

Start!

We are years into it already.

 

[Havoc2049]

Halo forge has been amazing and much need boost for Halo Infinite. Plus certain affinity is adding their own mode to Infinite multiplayer suite. https://www.neogaf.com/threads/cert...ced-our-single-biggest-project.1641868/page-2.

Forge is cool, but there is no forge match making. Forge match making isn't coming out till June, almost nine months after forge, which came out a year after the game launched. The only time 343 launched a complete package and promptly supported it with extra content, was Halo 4. Ever since then, they are always a day late and a dollar short.

 

[gow3isben]

This is the game that won Microsoft publisher of the year 2021

 

[NikuNashi]

This isn't going to happen but just imagine if Bungie bought the rights back to halo and the next game was a PS Studios first party title.

 

[Iced Arcade]

This isn't going to happen but just imagine if Bungie bought the rights back to halo and the next game was a PS Studios first party title.

right after naughty dog makes a mario game

 

[DeepEnigma]

This franchise at one time was on top of the world. Literally their Mario.

Sad state if true, and hope the series can return to the glory years. Bungie Halo is the best Halo that I still play till this day.

 

[Halo is Back]

MS isn't going to "cancel" Halo as an IP but giving it to another studio at this point would be an improvement.

 

[bender]

right after naughty dog makes a mario game

There is a Mario Golf joke here somewhere but I'm too tired.

 

[Salz01]

I laugh at the tweet where the guy says the future is bright for Halo. It’s so far beyond from that. That brightness is stuck trillions of miles away deep inside some black hole. They fucked Halo up so bad that show was shit too. Somebody needs to hold Phil’s feet to the fire because it lands on him. I’m coming to an age where I feel like now, I’ll never be able to play or have a new good Halo campaign. I better nut over Starfield or I’m done with Xbox.

 

[Mercenary09]

Why is anyone surprised? Xbox has never known how to manage their studios. Phil Spencer taking over didn't change things. This is why it takes forever for anything to come out of Xbox's first party. It's why I hate the idea of them buying anyone else so that they can mismanage them too and cause all of their future games to take forever or ship unfinished

 

[LiquidRex]

Well Bungie are recruiting

 

[Fredrik]

I get this sense we are witnessing the start of Xbox downfall.

People are laughing at you but I’ve sensed that for awhile now. Fans are getting tired of waiting, me too. They have so many studios but they don’t seem to be able to get the games out the door the right way to help growing the platform. I’m thinking they’re aiming for Sony AAA quality but they don’t quite reach there and then keeps on delaying until the complaints outside gets too loud and then gets forced to release what they have in the state it is.

Starfield, Fable and Hellblade 2 are the real tests. If they stumble there they’ll struggle to crawl back.

And Halo seems to be done at 343. Should let id reskin a new Doom game, Slayer and Master Chief aren’t far away from each other in visuals or behaviour anyway.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Well Bungie are recruiting

Oh great. Can't wait to see what shallow, greedy and low effort game they release next.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

This is the game that won Microsoft publisher of the year 2021

No. Gamepass and a half dozen other stellar titles did.

 

[LiquidRex]

This isn't going to happen but just imagine if Bungie bought the rights back to halo and the next game was a PS Studios first party title.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/what-if-sony-was-to-acquire-the-halo-ip.1650323/#post-267369799 you're missing out here.

 

[Luc2010]

Shit, I didn't start playing Infinite until this past update. If you can't ship with Coop, then it ain't Halo.

 

[Rien]

ABK’s gonna be in good hands I see.

The best hands

 

[LiquidRex]

It does make you wonder, maybe the Activision/Blizzard deal will go through after all, I mean if the regulators see how Microsoft ruined there biggest IP (Halo) then what does the competition have to worry about.

 

[MadPanda]

I really like halo infinite multiplayer too, so I'll be sad to see that die out too

Edit:
I feel like I'm only guy here that doesn't want infinite to fail, as it is a game I genuinely really enjoy playing.

No, you're not. I enjoy Infinite MP even though I never played halo mp before. It's amazing and I'm glad they're continuing to support it. I don't want the franchise to die, but I'm not a big or long standing fan so even if it does I wouldn't mind much.

 

[ZehDon]

It does make you wonder, maybe the Activision/Blizzard deal will go through after all, I mean if the regulators see how Microsoft ruined there biggest IP (Halo) then what does the competition have to worry about.

"Your honour, we have no intention of remaining competitive. Hell, if even half of these studios are still open in five years, we'll be as surprised as you are!"

 

[balls of snow]

Rip halo. What a shitshow of a franchise.

 

[MasterCornholio]

10 year plan

 

[Benniewise de Clown]

Spencer is the new Mattrick.

 

[KyoZz]

I fully agree that the post launch support has left a lot to be desired/was abysmal, I dropped off for a couple months when cod came out, but I'm back playing infinite and having a lot of fun.

But it feels like everyone here wants halo to fail sadly or jump on the hate wagon for 343.

I was really hoping they could bring people back, but it is starting to look like it is too late

Why would I play Infinite multiplayer in a world where MCC exist? 343i failed big time.

 

[Havoc2049]

They should roll Infinite into MCC at this point.

 

[YuLY]

It’s absolutely unbelievable how badly Microsoft screwed Halo up.

Bro their screwing up everything not just Halo. Where the hell are the games? Wheres Avowed? wheres InXile rumored steampunk rpg, why are people leaving Playground while they should be there to do next Fable for which we saw a short cinematic 2 years ago and then nothing, Why do we still not have a date for Starfield, has the coalition actually done something since Gears 5 that came out in fucking 2019 ??? its freakin 2023, wheres the Hellblade 2 date , a game that was revelead like what, 3 years ago ? This Phil guy only spews random hype words and then nothing happens, I gave him a chance, but hes been doing it for almost a decade. Xbox is a joke.

I legit think in a few years Satya could just pull the plug on xbox for good, all it takes is stuff like Starfield to flop and Acti-Blizz to not go through.

 

[Gambit2483]

Bro their screwing up everything not just Halo. Where the hell are the games? Wheres Avowed? wheres InXile rumored steampunk rpg, why are people leaving Playground while they should be there to do next Fable for which we saw a short cinematic 2 years ago and then nothing, Why do we still not have a date for Starfield, has the coalition actually done something since Gears 5 that came out in fucking 2019 ??? its freakin 2023, wheres the Hellblade 2 date , a game that was revelead like what, 3 years ago ? This Phil guy only spews random hype words and then nothing happens, I gave him a chance, but hes been doing it for almost a decade. Xbox is a joke.

I legit think in a few years Satya could just pull the plug on xbox for good, all it takes is stuff like Starfield to flop and Acti-Blizz to not go through.

To think, people actually wanted MS to buy Activision-Blizzard and take on even more (mis)management responsibilities. They cant even manage what they already have....smh