Ok, so I was just at a friends house and played Halo 2. It fucking rocked. I got my ass handed to me, but it fucking rocked. Anyway, do any of you know if it’ll be coming to PC, or will I just be stuck with Halo and its “expansion” (Combat Evolved I believe it was)?
:Combat Evolved is part of the original Halo’s name. It’s Halo: Combat Evolved.
My apologies. Anyway, yay or nay?
Nay. Basically, before Bungie (the maker of the Halos, both of them) was owned by Microsoft, they were making Halo for Mac and PC. Then, Bill Gates handed them a nice, big check. Part of the deal was that while their’ future developmental efforts would be for XBox mostly, they would be allowed to later finish the PC and Mac versions of Halo1, since that was the way it was initially meant to be, its just that the newly materialized xbox version was to come out first. Other perks was full freedom with franchises made before Halo, like Marathon (which they have released for free, just need to figure out ways to get them running on PCs) and Myth, but Halo was to be controlled by MS, and they would only be allowed to finish HaloPC and Mac, as it was meant to be.
Since Halo2 was not factored in the deal, that means MS has control, and would likely not let it leave the XBox. Perhaps Bungie could try some legal hoopla (“But it says in the contract 'the Halo series, not just Halo1!!!11!1”), but after Halo2 sold so well, they may want to factor in market saturation. Since it would take both legal resources and the normal development resources to make the port happen, I hate to say it, but don’t hold your breath.
Edit: Note that the PC version of Halo was poorly ported for performance. If your computer can’t run Half-Life 2 at max settings, expect horrendous slowdown. Its not because of the graphics (which have aged), its just shoddy programming. I can attest, though that really high-end comps like my own are up to it regardless.
Ok, thats cool I guess. Thanks, Ion.
I’m willing to bet that Microsoft would release a PC version of Halo. It’s just good business, there’s too many people who prefer their FPSes on PCs to just pass up on the opportunity. What’s most likely is that MS will farm it out to some company who know little about the source and end up with a terrible port, just like in the first one.
Personally, though, we have Halo 2 here, and I am not impressed.
Keep in mind that Microsoft needs a reason to sell the XBox, and XBoxLive. Halo2 is the biggest reason, with so many other games being ported to the PC, and usually better to boot. I doubt MS would let Halo2 get ported, they didn’t even want Halo1 ported, it was just in the contract/part of the deal. And even then, they farmed it out to someone else, showing how much they care. As I said, there is market saturation, and after how poorly ported the original was, people would likely skip out on the PC version. Heck, the PC version of Halo1 wasn’t the biggest seller, now was it?
For the record, Halo2’s PREORDERS went over, what, 30 million? Market saturation is definately a factor with those numbers. That, and the PC market is largely “Oh, gee, console FPSes are SOOO inferior” limiting the market further. The only real lure to the PC version of Halo1 was the online play, which was never included in the Xbox version, and is included in the XBox version of Halo2. Also, the “We are better than console” mentality is bolstered by all the competition with Half-Life2, even we, an RPG site of all things, felt that one to an extent (though we were a little too one-sided to really feel it, we still felt some of it).
And if they farmed out development to another company, it would only make people remember Halo1’s port even more, and yet that is the only financially feasible option to them (one BIG factor is remaking the online network for PC internet, and not XBoxlive. You may not have seen it, but it is very complex with its rankings and recordings etc, it took a hell of a lot of effort to do it all in just one network, doing it all over again would be financial suicide, sans the fact that this is Microsoft/Bungie we are talking about).