The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft
In terms of the direct impact, obviously it’s a first-party product so it’s reasonably profitable from our point of view, and it will be several hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue next year
Sounds like a good deal. Thanks to JeBr0nie for the heads up and for having an unreasonably capitalized name.(KP 17:54:11 UTC)
Well, it’s not my money…My dad’s laptop croaked a few days ago. He returned it under warranty to tigerdirect and they called him today to tell him he had a $1500 credit. He’s got to call them in the next hour and tell them what laptop he wants with the credit. He asked my advice in getting the best bang for the buck, so I am asking the advice of the uber-geeks here.
He surfs the web, uses ebay, trades email, stores and plays music files, and plays simple games. How would you spend $1500 at tigerdirect.com?
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As reported in Variety and Deadline Hollywood Daily, Larry Shapiro has left his position at CAA. What’s the big deal? Remember when Bungie would mention how they were meeting with CAA and shopping the Halo script around to movie production houses? Larry apparently was a big part of making those kind of meetings happen.
In 2003 Seamus Blackley, with obvious Microsoft pedigree, joined him, and the Halo Movie rumors didn’t start until 2005, but it’s not hard to imagine that it was Larry, not Seamus, that had the pull to get outfits like Universal and 20th Century Fox to sit down together with Microsoft and try to get the movie off the ground. Of course, even before Larry left CAA this whole thing has turned into a fiasco (don’t believe me? Take a look), but who knows how much worse it is without the all-important ‘broker’ that can smooth talk folks into shaking hands and committing millions of dollars in getting something as audacious as a military-vs-alien sci-fi shoot-em-up based on a video game as seen through the eyes of I-never-knew-a-budget-I-couldn’t-break Peter Jackson?
Could the movie still happen? What do I know? I guess it could, but with Halo 3 right around the corner, and what I would imagine severe-brain-fatigue at Bungie after so many years of Halo Halo Halo… I have to be honest and express my desire that someone at Bungie (Jason Jones is the usual suspect) has been visiting the local library and reading some new and interesting tales that will inspire the group to create something fresh. For us Halo fans, the movie would never have matched all our wishes and dreams for something so visually and emotionally visceral: your Rosebud moment is my Jump The Shark. A parallel opinion is the cynical take on music-hero worship: Is it better that Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin died so early in their lives, at the peak of their careers, then to see them age into out-of-touch entertainers desperately trying to connect with the masses through guest-shots on American Idol?
That doesn’t mean Microsoft themselves won’t pursue it if possible, and damn Bungie’s input if any is forthcoming. But ugh, can you imagine? I don’t want to.
As reported in Variety and Deadline Hollywood Daily, Larry Shapiro has left his position at CAA. What’s the big deal? Remember when Bungie would mention how they were meeting with CAA and shopping the Halo script around to movie production houses? Larry apparently was a big part of making those kind of meetings happen.
In 2003 Seamus Blackley, with obvious Microsoft pedigree, joined him, and the Halo Movie rumors didn’t start until 2005, but it’s not hard to imagine that it was Larry, not Seamus, that had the pull to get outfits like Universal and 20th Century Fox to sit down together with Microsoft and try to get the movie off the ground. Of course, even before Larry left CAA this whole thing has turned into a fiasco (don’t believe me? Take a look), but who knows how much worse it is without the all-important ‘broker’ that can smooth talk folks into shaking hands and committing millions of dollars in getting something as audacious as a military-vs-alien sci-fi shoot-em-up based on a video game as seen through the eyes of I-never-knew-a-budget-I-couldn’t-break Peter Jackson?
Could the movie still happen? What do I know? I guess it could, but with Halo 3 right around the corner, and what I would imagine severe-brain-fatigue at Bungie after so many years of Halo Halo Halo… I have to be honest and express my desire that someone at Bungie (Jason Jones is the usual suspect) has been visiting the local library and reading some new and interesting tales that will inspire the group to create something fresh. For us Halo fans, the movie would never have matched all our wishes and dreams for something so visually and emotionally visceral: your Rosebud moment is my Jump The Shark. A parallel opinion is the cynical take on music-hero worship: Is it better that Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin died so early in their lives, at the peak of their careers, then to see them age into out-of-touch entertainers desperately trying to connect with the masses through guest-shots on American Idol?
That doesn’t mean Microsoft themselves won’t pursue it if possible, and damn Bungie’s input if any is forthcoming. But ugh, can you imagine? I don’t want to.
It was good to see some old (is long-time a better word?) THX’ers join up to the HALO 2 action last night. We’ve been having 6-8 regulars each night since the two new HALO maps came out.
If you’ve got old or new XBOX hardware and have some time, come join up or post a thread to coordinate a playing time.
Don’t have time to play? Just join up to the party, say you’re going to go watch LOST, and don’t come back.
GG’s all.
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rapzilla blog | Shadowrun | HALO 2 Vista | cooked Gamers
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Larry Hyrb describes his first experience with Halo 2 PC and its integration into the Windows Live and Xbox Live architecture. He reminds me that there will be achievements for Halo 2 PC players. Us folk playing H2 on original xboxen will never be able to earn them. 🙁 It looks like Windows Live is going to integrate PC and console gamers like never before. Click “read more” to view the text of the article.
From majornelson.com
I got my hands on a gold copy of Halo 2 for Windows Vista yesterday (it goes on sale in a few weeks) and after installing it I did a few things that, while geeky, are worth mentioning. Some are downright cool:
-After installing H2 for Vista, I was able to sign in to Xbox LIVE from the ‘Guide’ within the game, and see all of my LIVE friends, messages etc. (above and here)
-I hooked up my Xbox 360 Wireless Controller and my Wireless headset to my PC via the Wireless Gaming Receiver.
-I was able to send and receive text and voice messages from the guide to other LIVE members who were on their Xbox 360’s. You press the Guide button on your controller and the guide pops up over the game – just like on the Xbox 360.
-Got my first Halo 2 Achievement (and added another 30 points to my GS)
-While I was playing through the first level of the campaign, I was on a voice chat over my wireless headset with Litheon who was playing Gears of War on his Xbox 360.
There was a LOT of technology going on here but it was a fairly seamless experience. Once you get your hands on Halo 2 for Vista, you’ll see what I mean. It will get even better when Shadowrun ships later this year and PC players and Xbox 360 players can not only communicate over LIVE but also compete against each other. With the the new LIVE connectivity with PC games this is the start of a new era of gaming for Games for Windows and Xbox 360 owners.
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GamePro.com has put together the list of the 52 “most important” video games of all time. Because it’s a list done according to importance, it means that games that were significant, even if they were bad, are on the list. One assumes that’s not why Halo is on it in position #45, which won a spot for “scores of subtle gameplay refinements”, or why Halo 2 clocks in at #20 for its innovative matchmaking model.
The top three are a tad controversial: Legend of Zelda in 3rd, Madden Football in 3nd, and Grand Theft Auto III in first. Huh?
How many non-Halo games on the list have you played? I’ve got about 22, so that’s less than half.
Thanks to madcowjim who noted the story in the HBO forum and KP who posted it on HBO’s frontpage.
Kotaku says they’ve received word of a big Halo 3 media event on May 11, just prior to the start of the public beta on May 16.
Awesome O and Pillar of Awesome just announced that they’ve put together a Halo trivia quiz.
Before anybody asks, a quick run-through got me 88%, good for the rank of Spartan II, meaning that so far Spartan Jag, Bry, chargeorge, ST, Schedonnardus, NartFOpc, Zerostar, Dom0429, gunluva, Anton P. Nym and even 7he grunt w/a plasma pistol have all beat me out, assuming everybody’s honest. Now I have to go back and figure out what I got wrong…
Frankie at Bungie.net writes that the planned playlist update is being delayed until next week (probably) while they continue to investigate the problems some users are having in downloading Halo 2 maps.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been able to get the maps now, both on my old Xbox console and on my 360. What I still can’t do is get all the old map packs on the 360; when attempting that, I get the continual “installation has failed” error with the unhelpful link toe Xbox Support that others are getting while trying to download the newer maps.
