Microsoft: One "Halo" Game Every Three Years Not Frequent Enough

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 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.

HellJumper wrote:This news can be considered bad new or good news.Its bad news if MS fuck up the franchise by making each game lower quality.Its good news if they can keep the quality.

You cant say either one will happen until the games come out.Its very possible that MS will task some of their first party devs(not just 343) to make Halo games.So it could work

But it is also possible that MS can fuck up the franchise.

We just have to wait and see.Its stupid to make assumptions before the games are even announced(like 343 will suck ect)

HellJumper wrote:This news can be considered bad new or good news.Its bad news if MS fuck up the franchise by making each game lower quality.Its good news if they can keep the quality.

You cant say either one will happen until the games come out.Its very possible that MS will task some of their first party devs(not just 343) to make Halo games.So it could work

But it is also possible that MS can fuck up the franchise.

We just have to wait and see.Its stupid to make assumptions before the games are even announced(like 343 will suck ect)

Pizzy3C wrote:

HellJumper wrote:This news can be considered bad new or good news.Its bad news if MS fuck up the franchise by making each game lower quality.Its good news if they can keep the quality.

You cant say either one will happen until the games come out.Its very possible that MS will task some of their first party devs(not just 343) to make Halo games.So it could work

But it is also possible that MS can fuck up the franchise.

We just have to wait and see.Its stupid to make assumptions before the games are even announced(like 343 will suck ect)

We can safely assume the quality will go down for the time frame whoever develops Halo now will be 1 year as apposed to the 3 years Bungie got... Being one of M$ few hardcore exclusives left I don't think, or hope, they'll ruin this franchise... I think if u own a 360 or not we can all agree that we don't want to see this groundbreaking series die...

TheJubJub5721 wrote:
Yeah, and just look at CoD. Cod4 was great, CoD5 was good, MW2 was just garbage. They are getting worse. I can see this happening if they do one halo every year.

Zillah wrote:

TheJubJub5721 wrote:
Yeah, and just look at CoD. Cod4 was great, CoD5 was good, MW2 was just garbage. They are getting worse. I can see this happening if they do one halo every year.

Opinion. Everyone around the globe didn't say MW2 SUX!

SlySonji™ wrote:

Zillah wrote:

TheJubJub5721 wrote:
Yeah, and just look at CoD. Cod4 was great, CoD5 was good, MW2 was just garbage. They are getting worse. I can see this happening if they do one halo every year.

Opinion. Everyone around the globe didn't say MW2 SUX!

You're right. Every sane person said it did.

Zillah wrote:

SlySonji™ wrote:

Zillah wrote:

TheJubJub5721 wrote:
Yeah, and just look at CoD. Cod4 was great, CoD5 was good, MW2 was just garbage. They are getting worse. I can see this happening if they do one halo every year.

Opinion. Everyone around the globe didn't say MW2 SUX!

You're right. Every sane person said it did.

So the MILLIONS of MW2 owners aren't sane? Or the members on this forum?!
Demoted.

Zillah wrote:Oh, so moving a stick up and down, and hitting a fake ball is ok?

Get Tactical Nukes is the devil?
I hope someone pisses in your IV when you're a old man. lmfao.

Zillah wrote:Oh, so moving a stick up and down, and hitting a fake ball is ok?

Get Tactical Nukes is the devil?
I hope someone pisses in your IV when you're a old man. lmfao.

TheJubJub5721 wrote:

Zillah wrote:Oh, so moving a stick up and down, and hitting a fake ball is ok?

Get Tactical Nukes is the devil?
I hope someone pisses in your IV when you're a old man. lmfao.

Hitting the fake ball takes more talent that getting a tac nuke in MW2....


@Pizzy thats why I hope they don't!

Zillah wrote:

TheJubJub5721 wrote:

Zillah wrote:Oh, so moving a stick up and down, and hitting a fake ball is ok?

Get Tactical Nukes is the devil?
I hope someone pisses in your IV when you're a old man. lmfao.

Hitting the fake ball takes more talent that getting a tac nuke in MW2....


@Pizzy thats why I hope they don't!

And that's where you're wrong. Unless you're boosting, Tactical Nukes are hard, even for campers. (UNLESS, the other team is shit ass suck material and can't kill a guy when they know where he's at.) Then it's their fault.

So just because a game takes more skill makes it better?
Now, I can bet my 100 dollars to 1 dollar, that you said a game isn't better because it's challenging in the chatbox? Huh.

TheJubJub5721 wrote:

Zillah wrote:

TheJubJub5721 wrote:

Zillah wrote:Oh, so moving a stick up and down, and hitting a fake ball is ok?

Get Tactical Nukes is the devil?
I hope someone pisses in your IV when you're a old man. lmfao.

Hitting the fake ball takes more talent that getting a tac nuke in MW2....


@Pizzy thats why I hope they don't!

And that's where you're wrong. Unless you're boosting, Tactical Nukes are hard, even for campers. (UNLESS, the other team is shit ass suck material and can't kill a guy when they know where he's at.) Then it's their fault.

So just because a game takes more skill makes it better?
Now, I can bet my 100 dollars to 1 dollar, that you said a game isn't better because it's challenging in the chatbox? Huh.

When did I say that in the chatbox? And thats not what I was getting at. Im saying that MW2 is a casual piece of shit. And tac nukes are not hard to get unless you suck.