Microsoft explains Halo's no-show at E3 game conference

Halo Nation has been abuzz since Bungie, the developer of the blockbuster video game franchise Halo, put out a cryptic letter on its website Tuesday apologizing for not making an appearance at E3, the game industry conference taking place this week in downtown Los Angeles.

"For the last several months, we've been building toward a reveal of something exciting that Bungie is working on," studio President Harold Ryan wrote. "We were looking forward to sharing that with our fan community during the week of E3. However, those plans were changed by our publisher."

"We realize that many of our fans are disappointed by this turn of events" Ryan said. He added a note of the spurned partner: "Members of the Bungie team share that disappointment."

This morning drew an explanation from the publisher not named in Bungie's note -- Microsoft.

Turns out that Bungie's latest Halo project was originally part of the program for Microsoft's press conference on Monday, but it was taken out of the lineup at the last minute. Don Mattrick, senior vice president of Microsoft's Xbox games business, said the company decided to pull Halo ...

... to help trim its E3 presentation to under 90 minutes, from 2 1/2 hours, to accommodate attention-challenged reporters. "We had an embarrassment of riches," Mattrick said. "We felt we could do this game more justice with a more dedicated event."

Bungie, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2000, split from the software giant last year but agreed to give Microsoft first dibs on publishing its games.

For Microsoft, the decision was a blow but not a critical hit. Although the Halo games have contributed over a billion dollars in sales for the Redmond, Wash., giant, the company is less reliant on the franchise than it once was. The first Halo game cemented Xbox as the console of choice for many serious gamers at a time when Microsoft was just entering the market and struggling to earn respect. Halo 3, released in September, singlehandedly pulled Microsoft's console division into the black for the fiscal year ending in June, giving the division its first profit since entering the market in 2001.

So Microsoft's decision to pull Halo from its presentation led to quite a bit of head scratching.

Mattrick put a positive spin on the development, saying that Microsoft had managed to build such a solid foundation that it no longer needed to depend on one or two games to succeed. He noted that the company also left out Grand Theft Auto IV. Microsoft snagged exclusive content for the game that will be made available to its Xbox 360 players this fall.

"Two big kahunas were left out of the show, and we were still able to deliver a strong performance," Mattrick said.

-- Alex Pham

Halo 3 image courtesy of Microsoft

Comments

[Allen]

Cut down time? HA!

They obviously took down Bungie's Game out of the Press Conference because they already have a blockbuster game out there: Gears of War 2. They want to suck all the juice out of Gears before dropping the bomb about Bungie's Game..

Bunch of Greedy ************** !

That is the worst excuse I have ever heard. The real reason is they probably didn't want to steal their other franchises thunder. Bungie's new game Halo 3 has sold 8.1 million copies that is a lot. It would be the most talked about thing there guaranteed.

[Smiling Assassin]

Absolutely friggin' idiotic!!! So now we know we get a new Halo game but they didn't show any of it. This could be one of the stupidest marketing ideas I have ever seen. If someone doesn't lose a job at MS over this it could be a great indicator of the direction of their games division.

MS YOU JUST SCREWED YOUR BIGGEST FANS - AND AN IDIOT LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG ON TOP OF IT!!!

[Jay]

MS did the same thing last year too. They didn't announce Gears of War 2 during last year's E3 when Halo 3 was receiving all their marketing focus. Now this situation this year is magically different?

[Ray]

Hey Allen, that's not fair, its a marketing strategy, NOT being greedy. If they have 2 massive titles, why show both at the same time? Course I'm not all that happy because of all the initial hype, but considering the roster of title's coming this fall, I'll survive, even if I'm irked. By far I think Sony and Nintendo are the ones who need something as big as this new Halo game if they want to survive for future events.

[Geoff]

I wonder how long in advance M$ knew they didn't want to do a E3 showing or announcement? Bungie spent a lot of time working on their site giving out clues over the past 2 months and if M$ didn't want to show it they should have let Bungie know earlier and not 12 hours before the big reveal. I know marketing is a fast-paced world with lots of last-minute decisions, but M$ should have know Bungie was already starting the hype machine. That has to be somewhere in the fine print of their agreements. And I agree that it was a stupid move to 'announce' a new game by NOT announcing it! LOL

[Carl F]

Excellent, excellent move by Microsoft. They know how to play the game. They've got a good hand, and they're not spending it so fast. Presentations/briefing-wise, they've blown away the competition. When this announcement is ... announced, they'll get even more attention. They've done well, considering the Sony's momentum.

[morpheusx]

OR the marketing strategy is working to a charm, what are we talking about right now. Make people think it may show up, then Show nothing, make people question about it and say we have plans to announce it at a later event. In affect they announced it, but now are building anticipation for the "announcement".
It's called Hype.

[oneyx]

bungie NEVER said this was a halo game, most people assume it is, but bungie also makes other games and no one said anything about it being halo

[Paul]

Microsoft knows this new Halo game will be the biggest they have to offer this year. They didn't want it to steal the thunder of the other games they have to offer.

[Stop whining]

Seriously stop whining Microsoft has a great lineup this fall, I am still playing Halo 3. So many good games coming this fall already. Just some stupid nerds complaining because Microsoft decided to pull the Bungie preview. Who cares! Did you ever stop and think that the stuff they had for presentation wasn't up to par? Even if that's not the case I can spare a season without Halo!!! Hopefully they'll rework the next one a little better then the Halo 2 -3 transition

[Brett]

bahhh. E3 sucked this year. I wouldn't want my game to be seen with that crap either. Good job Bungie!

[LeonBlade]

Ahh... so your saying Halo could come out on other systems such as the PS3? Yes, (I just answered my question) but really do we care? I've played Halo before, and while it can be fun MULTIPLAYER it's not the "oh-so-perfect" game as everyone makes it out to be. I unfortunatly didn't get to see what Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii's press confrences where (if any from Nintendo idk). But the PLAYSTATION Store has downloads for all the trailers and is currently converting Part 2 of the press confrence. I was VERY impressed by what I saw. So really, I don't think any Halo 4 or any whatever is really that big of a deal, and if it is, not showing it at E3 gives them more time, and possibly a bigger reveal.

[Huskerfan]

Halo sucks, I've played all of them and it's not a good game. Halo 3 I played campaign for 3 days, played multiplayer 1 day and havn't touched it since, don't even own it anymore. I don't know what people see in it.

there are so many games coming out this year and next year that a 4th halo is at the bottom of my list. If it's a prequel im not even going to touch it. if it continues after 3, it will be a rental at best when I have time.

[hungry81]

to Huskerfan, did you get yout butt handed to you on halo3's mm? was the campain to hard for you..lol. any ways.
It sucked that M$ didnt let bungie show their new game to the world, as some of you mention they had been giving clues for the past month's or so. That was my only reason why i watched E3. Also the FF13 must of been a last minute thing. I do give M$ some credit, if this is what they plan on doing. To get people to want it more then great job, and like some one said. Some one better lose their job if it was a fukUP. Halo was the only reason why i got and xbox and then the 360. I like halo do the community aspect of the game. The MM is by far the best i played. No game on the ps3 has what the h3 community has. ( i was a ps user before i made the switch to xbox) We shall see what the PS3 is going to do. I hope that they dont keep lossing exclusive to M$, but how things look like. They will keep lossing their exclusives. any ways..IT will be the day when MGS4 goes to the 360 in a year or so. give it time. Snake will come to the 360.....

[frenzy562]

bungie held on a leash?
no.
it's simply a matter of time until that timer starts ticking down again and halo fanboys jumping out of their cardboard made C.Q.B armor.
kudos to you bungie.

[Michael Scott]

Wait a sec here..

Microsoft never DID specify that it was a Halo game.. the Article writer did. What if this is NOT a Halo game, and the "postponement of the release announcement" was designed to promote speculation, and to get everyone to say.. "Well sure.. Microsoft sucked at E3, but they DO have another Halo game on it's way."

What if this isn't a Halo game at all? What if by making a big issue of revealing and then NOT revealing it, it leaves people thinking there's a Halo title coming when there's actually not?

Do the math.. which is better? A few weeks buzz on a top-selling title that never even intends to be made? or a confirmed title that creates buzz about a new IP from a company that's expected to produce more Halo.

Well guess which one they chose? Both. Have your cake and eat it to..

However.. I'm hoping this teaches Bungie the importance in getting completely out from under the thumb of microsoft, rather than alow them to still mess with them as publisher. I hope their next IP is cross platform at the very least..

A new Halo game needs no real push, just an announcement to get it's hype. Gears of War could use the push, though it really did quite well in building it's own following. I for one will go for GOW2 with less doubts than I went for GOW1, despite knowing much less about the game this time around.

The 'non-announcement" will hurt GOW more than it helps microsoft, and since it'll possibly end-up being a non-halo release from Bungie, it will have two negative impacts on the system.

The other option is that M$ was about to spill the beans on a new console, and opted not to. Perhaps this next Bungie release is aimed for that? You know.. the highly anticipated, next gen "Purple box of death" console from the guys that brought you the Bluescreen of death and the Red Ring of death.

ID software is building software for that, why not Bungie?

It would certainly explain how M$ "trimmed its E3 presentation to under 90 minutes, from 2 1/2 hours.." basically in-half.

If all they wanted to do was shorten the presentation.. why are we still waiting to hear anything? shenanigans..

M$, you win this time, but what happens when Bungie gives you first publishing rights on their personally owned IP as the separation contract calls for,.. followed shortyl by a newly improved version with twice the content, availible only on Sony.

Can you see the advertising yet?
"Come see the excitement that only Sony's system can deliver!" "Look what Bungie had to cut-out of the 360 version, to ensure the 360's inferior operating system could handle it."

Can you see the interviews?

Bungie: "Wow.. thank god for Sony.. we had so much content planned for this game, but since we were going through Microsoft's system, and the features they'd promised us never showed up, we spent about two months carefully cutting away features that would allow this game to work with that console. Then Sony came along and says..'Hey! I know you guys don't like us.. but I'm thinking that's just because you haven't tried us.' We were standing there with all of these extra features we wished we could include, and were doubtful.. but then we thought.. 'well, these guys have a great track record.. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about them, but you know what? he's right, let's at least LOOK at it'.

"We were amazed at the ease with with Sony's system just soaked this game up. It took to it like a soffish to water.. NOW we know what the fuss was all about. Had we known how superior this system was earlier, there's no way we would have ever gone with Microsoft. Granted, we will contiue to try and help our fans that are still stuck on those limited systems by offerring our Content reduced versions to them first, but THIS is where the true Bungie experience can really happen the way it was meant to."

Good timing yet again, Mr. Gates.. the going WAS good :)

[ERic]

hey Micheal Scott you have point about not being a halo game, and i thinks so too because not so long ago they said their were gonna make a new game that is not related to halo at all. i can't remember were i read that but its true and if im wrong then they fooled me and other people who knew this.

people who say halo sucks shut up for god sake, haven't you heard if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all, yeah you think its sucks and why do people like it at all, well i think it has a great story line that is so unique and vast in mysteries, I'm in an architecture class an i love the way they create buildings and vehicles, that's why some people like it, yeah the game play needs some tweaks here and there but its fun to play, easy to pick up and understand

so stop bitching and shut up

[Drew]

Microsoft revealing the game at E3 wasn't going to get it finished or out to you guys any faster, so what's the big deal? They obviously had enough big announcements (ESPECIALLY compared to Nintendo and Sony) that they could hold off on a Halo announcement. Whether they announce it now or announce it later, the impact on sales will be the same, just shifted in time. After Gears II comes out alongside the Fall Update, a Halo announcement would be the cherry on top to push quite a few people towards purchasing a 360. Just because YOU wanted them to talk about Halo doesn't mean it would have been a good move.