Will the Xbox 360 live or die by Halo 3?

Mike Bantick
Thursday, 13 September 2007 12:45

Opinion and Analysis

Not long to go now Haloites.  September 25th will see many folks hidden from social view as they "finish the fight" with Halo 3.  The hype machine is building with the release date in sight.  Does the future of the Microsoft games console hinge on Halo 3's success?  Or will it just keep things ticking over until Gears of War 2?

Though there have been code leaks, rumoured to have resulted in tens of thousands of accounts banned from the online Xbox Live service, Halo 3's true street date for the masses, will be late this month.

This will be the first Halo on the Xbox 360 platform, having left the original Xbox knowing it helped place the fledgling Microsoft console on the map. 

The first Halo (Combat Evolved) launched with the Xbox and was the must-have game of late 2001.

In November 2004, Halo 2  drove sales of the machine even further with a record 1.5 million pre-sales of the title piquing interest in the franchise.

With a whole new platform and level of technology, developer Bungie had the chance to flex some coding muscles for the final Halo chapter.

Having played through the multiplayer Beta recently, Bungie has packed in some graphical wizardry to delight fans.  They have also introduced some game-play elements to give the newcomers and veterans alike plenty to do.

New deployable equipment such as a Bubble Shield or Portable Gravity Lift give maps a level of dynamism.  Couple this with turret mounted devices, new vehicles and the obligatory new weapons, including the awesome flamethrower and things are bound to, literally, hot up.

How important will this title be for Microsoft gaming ambitions?  Without Halo or Halo 2, Xbox would be a mere blip on the gaming history time-line.  Unrealised potential like so many before it, the Sega Dreamcast being a recent example of well thought out piece of hardware, without the backup of the required "killer app".

But, things are different now.  The Xbox marque is now well entrenched as a household brand, almost up there with PlayStation.  Sure it still struggles in the major Japanese market , much of this due to the reputation as being a platform of hard-core shooters.  But in essence, the Xbox has shaken the Halo link, with many other hyped gaming monikers being linked to the platform.

For the Xbox 360, Gears of War has filled the Halo shoes of shifting units for Microsoft - heck! 'Gears' got two cameos in the recent Diehard 4.0 hollywood flick.

Then there are the other cross platform franchises that have been attracted to the Xbox 360.  There are few big name titles that don't appear on at least two gaming platforms these days.  At the time of writing, Stranglehold, Medal of Honor: Airbourne and Bioshock are riding high in the sales charts, all multi-platform games that include the Xbox 360 as an offering.

Halo 3 already has over 1.5 million in presales, as a piece of software it is receiving the marketing and consumer support to ensure it will go down as a video gaming historic moment.

The three different versions (Standard, Collector's and Legendary), the Halo themed controllers, the launch events and of course the Halo themed Xbox 360's (both for charity and for sale ) will ensure there is plenty of product placement to permeate the consumers mind.  Too bad the movie did not come through.

But Xbox 360 has grown up, it no longer needs Halo to survive in the market.  And funnily enough, this description of the Xbox 360 growing up, actually means it's demographic has broadened to now include games such as Viva Piñata and Blue Dragon, shrugging off the "Hardcore FPS only" branding it previously held.

Halo 3 will be a phenomenon, Gears of War 2 will be a phenomenon when it gets made as well, but despite the Nintendo Wii leaving the Xbox 360 in its dust, and the Sony PS3 picking up the pace, the Xbox 360 no longer needs a Halo 3 crutch to lean on.