MS: One Halo game every 3 years not frequent enough

[Guild McCommunist]

For more than the first half of Microsoft's foray into the videogame world, players looked on with interest for years as they waited for the next Halo game to materialize. Recently, with the releases of Halo Wars, Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach, that wait has been reduced to 12 months or less. Expect that trend of short waits to continue, though perhaps not necessarily on an annualized pace.

Corporate Vice President for Microsoft Game Studios Phil Spencer told IGN that, "There's no explicit strategy that says we're to ship a Halo game every year. I will say I think one Halo game every three years -- which was kind of our old cadence – is probably not frequent enough."

Spencer noted the long life of the Halo franchise and pointed out that leaving such large gaps in between releases can be detrimental to audience engagement.

"We're coming up on, what, next year is the 10th anniversary. You watch the change in gamers in 10 years. The percentage of players who are playing Reach that were I'll say not old enough to play Halo 1 at the time, 10 years is a long time between launches. We definitely think about a more persistent Halo engagement for customers and not going dark for two years, and Live helps obviously with multiplayer to keep people engaged."

"343 Industries is thinking a lot about how to take this franchise and turn it into something that people feel like they have an ongoing relationship with and they can entertain themselves more often. But it's not, hey every November 6 or whatever we have to ship a game and build a production plan around that. We want to do things that make sense as a first party."

Asked if Microsoft took cues from the success Activision has had with its annualized Call of Duty franchise, Spencer had high praise for the mega-publisher.

"I'll just, again, be honest as a gamer. I used to look at annual releases of non-sports games as people just trying to milk me. I figured nobody had enough time to do a good job, and all of the negatives that we would associate with those kinds of scenarios. Kudos to Activision because they've done a good job building a good game, continuing to release each year and I think the fans feel like it's a good thing that they do that. I think there are some things to learn, some positives and some opportunities, in what they do with that. Obviously they've kept the quality extremely high, which I think is important."

"We have some unique challenges and opportunities with Halo because it is a story based game built around a certain set of characters, which is a bit different than what they do with Call of Duty. Not better or worse, it's just different. But watching them and seeing what they do -- we take inspiration from a lot of places -- but obviously they're a big success."

If Microsoft annualized the Halo franchise, would you continue to buy each release? Leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts. [/p]

Source

Moo. Just fucking moo.

 

[hullo8d]

Halo can never pull of what pokemon can.

 

[darkranboria]

Never make games according to time. Make the time according to games.

 

[Deleted-247497]

its obvious now that all halo games from now on will just be a cashout, microsoft clearly doesn't care about the quality of the games, just wants to push em out to make bank..its very possible Reach will be the last halo i buy

 

[injected11]

I used to look at annual releases of non-sports games as people just trying to milk me. I figured nobody had enough time to do a good job, and all of the negatives that we would associate with those kinds of scenarios. Kudos to Activision because they've done a good job building a good game, continuing to release each year and I think the fans feel like it's a good thing that they do that. I think there are some things to learn, some positives and some opportunities, in what they do with that. Obviously they've kept the quality extremely high, which I think is important."[/p]

This paragraph made me vomit in my mouth a little.

 

[Deleted-247497]

I used to look at annual releases of non-sports games as people just trying to milk me. I figured nobody had enough time to do a good job, and all of the negatives that we would associate with those kinds of scenarios. Kudos to Activision because they've done a good job building a good game, continuing to release each year and I think the fans feel like it's a good thing that they do that. I think there are some things to learn, some positives and some opportunities, in what they do with that. Obviously they've kept the quality extremely high, which I think is important."[/p]

This paragraph made me vomit in my mouth a little.

thats completely rediculous, because the're games cant last long they have a right to release every year. consider halo 3 lasted and all the stuff bungie added to that, if you look at the multiplayer maps/modes/playlists now and when it launched its almost a whole new game, while fucking call of duty never changes in the slightest, only change is completely over-priced maps that really dont add anything to the game.

 

[Scott-105]

I like Halo a lot, but without Bungie, I don't know how good they're going to be. Well, I guess we'll see.

 

[concealed identi]

Never make games according to time. Make the time according to games.

that's basically what he said though, isn't it?

 

[Canonbeat234]

Yes! I knew that MS is going to milk the shit out of this overhyped game! :lecture: The reason why they are doing this is obvious, Halo has gain its fame over the years from the Xbox till now. If they can make a Halo game that has more maps, weapons, power-ups, and multiplayer modes. It's going to sell.

 

[Raiser]

Oh my fu- just let the damn cow rest in piece.

M$ is just milking the damn thing to a state beyond death.

 

[Scott-105]

Why does everyone complain about milking a series? People obviously buy the games, therefore, people like them. Just because you don't, doesn't mean others don't.

 

[injected11]

Why does everyone complain about milking a series? People obviously buy the games, therefore, people like them. Just because you don't, doesn't mean others don't.

Because the quality tends to suffer, and features that should be in a current version will be withheld for another just to get that $$$.

 

[Edgedancer]

But with Activision and Cod, they have to teams working on the series to release them every year, staggering productions. I am not saying that yearly development cycles can be done but if you look at series like Need for Speed, the quality fell dramatically. I think 2-3 years is an appropriate time frame for a big title that wishes to maintain quality.

 

[DSGamer64]

Yearly releases are a terrible idea. Don't sacrifice quality over quantity, something I have been a big proprietor of for many years now. Sega was a company guilty of many times pumping out quantity products over quality and they wound up shitting the bed in the gaming business, Microsoft has something to fall back on financially though so even if the games wind up getting piss ass reviews they will continue to pump them out. It will soon get to the point where reviewers will just say "this feels the same as the last 5 other Halo games" or something like that, doubt it will ever sink in though.

 

[trumpet-205]

I would rather they spend more time on polishing a game then release a shaby one.

 

[Forstride]

Great, now we're going to experience what the Call of Duty and Pokemon series have and are still experiencing...Frequent releases in the series is obviously going to affect the quality of the games...We get a new Pokemon game (The main series that is) pretty much every year, and the same thing goes with Call of Duty.

I'm not saying each game is bad, but the frequent releases will eventually make the series horrible. Quantity will overpower quality...The games will still sell though, and will still be praised by some reviewer or company, because that's what money can do.

I really hope the Halo series doesn't go in this direction...I like the games quite a bit, as they're different than the other Xbox 360 FPS games: The story is great, and has a whole area not even explained in the games, the multiplayer is excellent and has more features than other Xbox 360 FPS games (Theater, Forge, Custom Games, etc...No other games have this, or at least do it as well as the Halo games do), etc.

The series could still be great, but not if games are released so frequently.

 

[SPH73]

A new Halo game every year....

 

[8BitWalugi]

It prints money so we must spam it. Seriously, one every 3 years was good enough. It let people appreciate it.

 

[Sterling]

With COD, atleast they have 2 teams dedicated to the game creation. Treyarch and Infinity Ward both have a 2 year development cycle. One releases, and one is being developed right after that, then another releases 1 year later. Thus a 2 year development cycle... Visualization:

1) Infinity Ward releases.
2) IW start development on next COD.
3) Ater IW's release 1 year later, Treyarch releases.
4) Treyarch starts new development.
5) 1 year later... rinse wash repeat.

This is the reason why there are two distinct fan sets for COD, the Treyjunkies, and the Infinites. I think that COD could be a little more polished, but more development time is going into them then you people think. I foresee that future Halo iterations will be going down the tube... :/

 

[purechaos996]

"I'll just, again, be honest as a gamer. I used to look at annual releases of non-sports games as people just trying to milk me. I figured nobody had enough time to do a good job, and all of the negatives that we would associate with those kinds of scenarios. Kudos to Activision because they've done a good job building a good game, continuing to release each year and I think the fans feel like it's a good thing that they do that. I think there are some things to learn, some positives and some opportunities, in what they do with that. Obviously they've kept the quality extremely high, which I think is important."

The first sentence made me think Hey look they finally figured it out. then the rest just ruined it.