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[Rumor] 343 is now stopping "active development" and become "franchise coordinator" of Halo. Halo Infinite Campaign DLCs scrapped, focus on MP support

Balls.

I like the lore of Halo and now it looks like they're just going to do whatever. Halo Infinite ended in a sort of cliffhanger with a new alien race and a new mystery and now we're not going to get any kind of explanation for a long time.

Cripes man, wtf? That's a real disappointment.
 

Ansphn

Member
If people buy a console without Game Pass then they're going to be buying games. Which MS makes a profit on. Model works for Sony who obviously don't make much money from selling console sales alone.
I understand that but what if they're not buying enough games and not subscribing to Gamepass long enough to make profit off the loss from each console?
 

Ansphn

Member
I've been a believer for a while now. My worry is if they do go down the publisher route, after the ActiBlizz purchase, and smash all the cherished franchises into the ground with their mis-management and focus on profit. Could you imagine this happening to Doom, Elder Scrolls, Diablo? Imagine that scenario for a moment...I only hope if they do go publisher, they go back to normality and charge gamers for games instead of this insane Day 1 GP model.
Oh for sure they will go back to the traditional way of selling games for $70 and create a few GAAS games. Gamepass was their last ditched effort during a global pandemic to take the market from Sony with the chip shortage in effect. It still didn't work. I don't think Gamepass is something they will try again after this gen if you go full publisher. It's too expensive and 3rd party developers including Indies do not like the model.
 

Ansphn

Member
Losing money on hardware sales has been a staple of this industry for decades for every console manufacturer. The money is made from selling software (games, subscriptions, DLC). Everyone knows this.
True for Sony because they sell a lot of software. Unfortunately, Xbox can't sell enough software and their games going Day 1 to Gamepass actually hurt their game sales even more, and it didn't help the subscriptions go up like they thought it would.
 

OmegaSupreme

advanced basic bitch
Losing money on hardware sales has been a staple of this industry for decades for every console manufacturer. The money is made from selling software (games, subscriptions, DLC). Everyone knows this.
Incorrect. Not in Nintendos case. They make money on the hardware. I believe Sony does after a while too.
 
Incorrect. Not in Nintendos case. They make money on the hardware. I believe Sony does after a while too.
Nintendo became the odd man out back during the Wii days once they saw that people were willing to purchase underpowered hardware as long as it had a good gimmick attached to it. Sony started making profits on their consoles about halfway through the PS4 generation, but before that, they too lost money on each sale.
 

Jaybe

Member
XBOX is weird these days. Like what in the world is going on over there?
Surprised Fire GIF


EDIT: fart town usa fart town usa seriously though, I do think there is some panic there, and trying to get in front of what is bound to be a horrible quarterly earnings report due Tuesday. It will be bad for the whole company but Xbox will be seen as a drag year-over-year. These are the moves made in advance to say, ‘look we know it’s bad and we’ve already addressed it’. A few bad things beyond their performance that have likely become clear recently:
- They gutted the price of the XSS and still finished last in units,
- they are getting a much stronger push back in the Activision acquisition than expected
- Starfield is likely missing the first half of 2023
So they are licking their wounds, staying quiet, and cutting costs before the financial bad news hits the street
 
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Pejo

Member
The thing I don't get - it's not like 343i had great ideas and just couldn't realize them because of technical know-how or ability. They fucking sucked at designing the game from the story to the gameplay systems to the open world focus.

Why on earth would MS still want them to be creatively involved in Halo when arguably that was the worst part? If it was me, I'd bring in some creative visionaries (and a strong proven project manager) and let 343i do the gruntwork, the exact opposite of the current rumor.
 
The thing I don't get - it's not like 343i had great ideas and just couldn't realize them because of technical know-how or ability. They fucking sucked at designing the game from the story to the gameplay systems to the open world focus.

Why on earth would MS still want them to be creatively involved in Halo when arguably that was the worst part? If it was me, I'd bring in some creative visionaries (and a strong proven project manager) and let 343i do the gruntwork, the exact opposite of the current rumor.

Because, and this should be crystal fucking clear to even the most stubborn apologist at this point, Microsoft can’t manage game studios for shit.
 

Nydius

Member
I still fully maintain the future is a campaign-less Halo. Despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews from both critics and users about the campaign's quality, the earned achievement statistics on both Xbox and Steam shows a minority of players engaged with the campaign compared to multiplayer.

On Xbox (and Windows Xbox PC App) platforms, only 25% finished the first level and retrieved Not Cortana™ (Together. Again?). Only 21% captured a Forward Operating Base (Reclaimer). Only 11% reached the mid-way point (Together. Again.). And less than 10% completed the entire campaign (Set a Fire in Your Heart). And that's with the benefit of being included on Game Pass. The numbers for these four achievements are just as bad on Steam: 10.7%, 10%, 6.3%, and 5.8, respectively.

If we take Microsoft at their word that 20 million people have played Halo Infinite, barely 2 million of us completed the campaign. Around 12-13 million people stopped playing after the very first level. Xbox fans can come in here and tell me I'm being hyperbolic but these numbers are easily accessible for anyone to check on the Xbox app and Steam's achievement page. Microsoft is probably sitting there wondering why they are dropping tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars on campaign development when 70%+ of players clearly don't care about it.

As much as I'd hate to see campaign disappear, if it does I fully understand why. Halo's biggest draw -- and biggest money maker -- is multiplayer.
 
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I still fully maintain the future is a campaign-less Halo. Despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews from both critics and users about the campaign's quality, the earned achievement statistics on both Xbox and Steam shows a minority of players engaged with the campaign compared to multiplayer.

On Xbox (and Windows Xbox PC App) platforms, only 25% finished the first level and retrieved Not Cortana™ (Together. Again?). Only 21% captured a Forward Operating Base (Reclaimer). Only 11% reached the mid-way point (Together. Again.). And less than 10% completed the entire campaign (Set a Fire in Your Heart). And that's with the benefit of being included on Game Pass. The numbers for these four achievements are just as bad on Steam: 10.7%, 10%, 6.3%, and 5.8, respectively.

If we take Microsoft at their word that 20 million people have played Halo Infinite, barely 2 million of us completed the campaign. Around 12-13 million people stopped playing after the very first level. Xbox fans can come in here and tell me I'm being hyperbolic but these numbers are easily accessible for anyone to check on the Xbox app and Steam's achievement page. Microsoft is probably sitting there wondering why they are dropping tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars on campaign development when 70%+ of players clearly don't care about it.

As much as I'd hate to see campaign disappear, if it does I fully understand why. Halo's biggest draw -- and biggest money maker -- is multiplayer.
That would be so bizarre since the series is very heavy on lore. They just recently released a huge encyclopedia for all the lore since the original Halo.

It would be ridiculous if they went multiplayer only and in my opinion wouldn't be Halo anymore. Things need to get explained like that stupid alien at the end of the Halo Infinite campaign.

Once they need is a new studio to start working on the campaigns.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
The implication that 343i is done with Halo campaigns since they’ve been gutted
Bittersweet.

Sadly it validates what every Tom, Dick and Harry have known since Halo 4; 343 had no idea. Why has it taken MS this long to act when it has been this obvious?

Now after tarnishing the brand irreparably they have taken the first step in reducing 343’s role.

The next step is the future of the series, and I don’t trust MS to make the right choices (hopefully they do). They’ll probably pass the series to some tin pot dev like Blooper and give us Halo 7 Nuts N Bolts.
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
Halo would never be the same without Bungie, but I thought 343 did an excellent job. Infinite's campaign in particular was a blast.

Granted, 2 was the last time I bothered with the multiplayer in Halo. That seems to be people's biggest issue with Halo post Bungie.
I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with an opinion on GAF more. I respect that you like what they’ve done, but I believe 343 is now the definition of mismanaging an IP. There has never been a better example of it
 
Halo Infinite “largely missed it’s financial goals”? What goals were there for the game, exactly?

It launched into Game Pass, so probably like no one actually bought it at $60. Why would anyone, it’s like 25 hours long at the most. I just don’t get what possible financial goals they had for this game. All of us could have told you the sales of the game would be low due to launching into Game Pass.

The revenue generated by the game was always going to be micro transactions and passes for the multiplayer side of the game.

This whole saga seems so silly. News flash, if you release a highly-anticipated first-party game into Game Pass on day one, most people will sub to Game Pass to play it instead of buying it. Then after beating it, many will unsub.
 
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I still fully maintain the future is a campaign-less Halo. Despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews from both critics and users about the campaign's quality, the earned achievement statistics on both Xbox and Steam shows a minority of players engaged with the campaign compared to multiplayer.

On Xbox (and Windows Xbox PC App) platforms, only 25% finished the first level and retrieved Not Cortana™ (Together. Again?). Only 21% captured a Forward Operating Base (Reclaimer). Only 11% reached the mid-way point (Together. Again.). And less than 10% completed the entire campaign (Set a Fire in Your Heart). And that's with the benefit of being included on Game Pass. The numbers for these four achievements are just as bad on Steam: 10.7%, 10%, 6.3%, and 5.8, respectively.

If we take Microsoft at their word that 20 million people have played Halo Infinite, barely 2 million of us completed the campaign. Around 12-13 million people stopped playing after the very first level. Xbox fans can come in here and tell me I'm being hyperbolic but these numbers are easily accessible for anyone to check on the Xbox app and Steam's achievement page. Microsoft is probably sitting there wondering why they are dropping tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars on campaign development when 70%+ of players clearly don't care about it.

As much as I'd hate to see campaign disappear, if it does I fully understand why. Halo's biggest draw -- and biggest money maker -- is multiplayer.
Its no surprise that many studios are trying to move away from single player money sinks or have attempted to.
 
Its no surprise that many studios are trying to move away from single player money sinks or have attempted to.
Elden Ring, BotW, RDR2, I could go on and on. The argument that single-player games can’t sell 20+ million copies and make hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue is just complete nonsense. And I’m not sure why that false narrative refuses to die with some people. Not to mention that Halo will never regain its popularity if they abandon single-player. My God that’s like one of the worst ideas I have ever heard. Lol.
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
Halo Infinite “largely missed it’s financial goals”? What goals were there for the game, exactly?

It launched into Game Pass, so probably like no one actually bought it at $60. Why would anyone, it’s like 25 hours long at the most. I just don’t get what possible financial goals they had for this game. All of us could have told you the sales of the game would be low due to launching into Game Pass.

The revenue generated by the game was always going to be micro transactions and passes for the multiplayer side of the game.

This whole saga seems so silly. News flash, if you release a highly-anticipated first-party game into Game Pass on day one, most people will sub to Game Pass to play it instead of buying it. Then after beating it, many will unsub.
Bingo. 100% MS thought a free to play Halo would be in the upper echelon of free to play games (Warzone, Rocket League, Destiny 2, Apex Legends, PUBG). Games that retain 50k-200k concurrent players a week on one platform, not 4k. They thought they’d be taking millions in MTX every week.
 
Bingo. 100% MS thought a free to play Halo would be in the upper echelon of free to play games (Warzone, Rocket League, Destiny 2, Apex Legends, PUBG). Games that retain 50k-200k concurrent players a week on one platform, not 4k. They thought they’d be taking millions in MTX every week.
They should replace all their C-suite finance guys with us, because we could’ve warmed them about this reality 18 months ago. 200k concurrent players a week was never even a remote possibility.
 
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Wulfer

Member
Isn’t this what everyone wanted?
No I wanted split-screen multiplayer mode where it's easy to have a few friends over and play like the good old days. Not this you need to work around this menu and enable that setting to do what Halo Legacy complete does on the fly!
 

Stuart360

Member
They should replace all their C-suite finance guys with us, because we could’ve warmed them about this reality 18 months ago. 200k concurrent players a week was never even a remote possibility.
200k concurrent a week may of been a tough ask, but they could of done well for a long time. The problem with Infinite is it has like 7 maps, and 2 of those are the big game mode maps.
It would probably of needed like 20 maps, and a BR mode to be successful long term.
I mean i put 80 hours into Infinite MP, but quit after like a month. No matter how good the maps are (and they were pretty good), you can only play the same maps for so long before you cant fo it anymore lol
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
We all saw it coming. 343 has been a giant clusterfuck from the get go. Management asleep at the fucking wheel.

Edit: If it's not coming now, either way it will eventually.
 
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GHG

Gold Member
They’ll probably pass the series to some tin pot dev like Blooper and give us Halo 7 Nuts N Bolts.

I laughed way too hard at this. Only because I know how much of an insult that game was to banjo fans.

I actually enjoyed it for what it was, don't shoot me.
 
Why are people on Gaf so negative about Jason? He has good sources and overall has a good history of being correct.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Why are people on Gaf so negative about Jason? He has good sources and overall has a good history of being correct.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't care for the way he wears his politics on his sleeve and portrays himself as the leftist crusader of the gaming industry.

But yes, you are right that he has good sources and is probably the most reliable source of information in gaming.
 

Wimbledon

Member
I just don't see how even if another studio took over, how MS wouldn't try to pull the same GaaS model onto THAT game as well.

They clearly WANT to push this model on all their games to some degree.

So even if someone capable did come along why wouldn't they be ruined by 343i or Microsofts input?

Clearly, they want a destiny clone, or a battle royal to reap the monetary benefits. They couldn't care less about the quality of the game, and if they're willing to do this to Halo. I have zero confidence in the rest of their first party.
 
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Kacho

Gold Member
I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't care for the way he wears his politics on his sleeve and portrays himself as the leftist crusader of the gaming industry.
Yeah, you nailed it here. The leftist crusader schtick is obnoxious. Unions, unions, unions, etc.

Plus he always comes across as a shit stirring gremlin. He dashed everyone’s hopes about Fallout 76 and reveled in the aftermath. He was right in the end though lol.
 
Yeah, you nailed it here. The leftist crusader schtick is obnoxious. Unions, unions, unions, etc.

Plus he always comes across as a shit stirring gremlin. He dashed everyone’s hopes about Fallout 76 and reveled in the aftermath. He was right in the end though lol.
Aren’t Unions important? Should they not be part of the gaming industry?
 
There are people acting like Microsoft shouldn't have doubled down on 343i. The reality is they had no choice but to double down.

They made their bed when the relationship with Bungie was allowed to sour. Building a studio from the ground up to take over a flagship franchise is very difficult.

This stuff doesn't just happen overnight. It's difficult for a new studio to manage a new IP and it's difficult for them to manage an existing IP, especially without assistance from the original studio (though many jumped to 343 from bungie).

Microsoft has not managed any of their major franchises well enough and many of its hardcore apologists have continued to cite GamePass as if GamePass isn't directly responsible for the continued collapse of their AAA game space.

These apologists have convinced themselves that GamePass is a sustainable model despite not knowing any of the metrics behind it. It's a flawed model and it's why you don't see Sony or Nintendo jumping in to replicate it. You don't see any 3rd parties replicating it.

In 2025-2027 if Microsoft shutters GamePass, these people will be nowhere to be found.

It's hard to justify spending 100 million on a game only for people to subscribe to play it for a month for 10 dollars and then unsub. That's not a sustainable model. Netflix can get away with this because they have a continuous stream of content AND the replayable nature of tv shows compared to games. That is where multiplayer means so much, but if a MP is F2P already who needs gamepass? And if GamePass conveys F2P and non GamePass is paid, the problem you run into is that most people only play one multiplayer game, your numbers run into issues.

I'd be stunned if GamePass makes it to 15 years.
 
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