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[Airbus Jr]

343 are dead...time for a change...a new team formation...442...433...451...4231....lets go...

 

[Jormatar]

RIP Halo. Bury it and come back after decade.

 

[Banjo64]

RIP Halo. Bury it and come back after decade.

Yeah, or later. It’s just the ugly step sister compared to id’s Doom and Activision’s CoD.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

the devs were just as incompetent

Not just the devs.







People keep dismissing Microsoft's failures as a publisher, but after 20 years in the market they wouldn't be needing to make massive publisher acquisition if they had been successful at fostering their 1st parties.

 

[diffusionx]

Not just the devs.







People keep dismissing Microsoft's failures as a publisher, but after 20 years in the market they wouldn't be needing to make massive publisher acquisition if they had been successful at fostering their 1st parties.

Failures like Halo at 343 are failures at all levels. The leadership was particularly bad but yes the people who wrote and made these bad games are also responsible. The fact that there is seemingly a mass exodus starting with Ross tells me that MS is pivoting. And IMO that’s a good idea as Infinite pissed off even the die hards who spent a decade putting up with MS’ shit.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Not just the devs.







People keep dismissing Microsoft's failures as a publisher, but after 20 years in the market they wouldn't be needing to make massive publisher acquisition if they had been successful at fostering their 1st parties.

Yes, which is why the pity party to try to justify them gobbling up all the major third party publishers is just… bad?

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Yes, which is why the pity party to try to justify them gobbling up all the major third party publishers is just… bad?

That pity party is simply riding a fantasyland wish to getting all of ABK's games under GamePass while assuming the service will keep its price and the games will keep their quality, release cadence and scope.
There's also some fanboys wishing for Sony to fail in general, but I really think that's a small minority.

 

[gothmog]

Yes, which is why the pity party to try to justify them gobbling up all the major third party publishers is just… bad?

People will bend over backwards for "free" games.

 

[mckmas8808]

...they'll continue being one of the most highly valued companies in the world and raking in billions every quarter?

Cool......but that doesn't mean anything for the Xbox division if GamePass isn't a huge success.

 

[DeepEnigma]

It's #20 right now right after FIFA:

It's also #6 on GamePass and #4 on GamePass Cloud.

Which was once the defacto game on that platform. Their literal Mario.

 

[mckmas8808]

Even if the game got 10/10 and there was no Craig, Halo isn't going to be a big hit like the Xbox OG and 360 days. It's an old school shooter which lots of gamers arent into sci-fi like the old days of Doom, Quake, Unreal, Halo.

We already saw it come crashing down with WWII. Modern Warfare (COD leading the pack) made sci-fi shooters even less important and interesting. I played Unreal back in the day on my Pentium. You got rocket launchers, that nuke bomb rocket, blue laser and blow up sphere. Crazy shit. As soon as WWII and MW games came out, I'm playing them. I like my shooters more grounded.

Thats not to say colourful crazy stuff doesn't sell. Fortnite and Apex F2P do well. And so does Destiny. But Halo is really still striving for that legacy shooter fan from 2004. Times have changed.

From this

To this.....

 

[Salty Popsicle]

Cool......but that doesn't mean anything for the Xbox division if GamePass isn't a huge success.

Phil Spencer already stated a few months ago that GamePass will always only ever amount to 10% - 15% of total Xbox gaming revenue in the long run. GamePass is just a way for them to entice new customers into the Xbox ecosystem and to test out the Azure cloud servers in a mainstream way.

 

[mckmas8808]

Phil Spencer already stated a few months ago that GamePass will always only ever amount to 10% - 15% of total Xbox gaming revenue in the long run. GamePass is just a way for them to entice new customers into the Xbox ecosystem and to test out the Azure cloud servers in a mainstream way.

So how will the Xbox brand grow? Because video game sells will decrease the more people like GamePass. That's just natural. Maybe they have a 3rd pillar in the works.

 

[Dr. Samuel Hayden]

This is going around, apparently the guy's gotten stuff right before.

[/URL]

Translation -

The dismissals within 343 Industries are unfortunately the result of poor management of the studio and its workforce by the people in charge. If this could have been avoided, the impact on the strategy remains minimal: multiplayer-oriented content.

Before talking about the future of 343 Industries, let's first talk about the impact on the studio's current strategy, the state of which we have already mentioned to you in our previous thread.

If we put aside the very sad human toll of these layoffs, the strategy initiated by 343 Industries in 20222 is ultimately only slightly impacted:

Produce content for the multiplayer portion of the title at the expense of narrative single-player content.

As such, these headcount losses will not impact the studio's current plans for Halo Infinite for 2023 and beyond:

All content planned for this year, future seasons, modes and elements are maintained and are not disrupted.

This will include all Halo Infinite related projects being worked on by 343 Industries & external studios:

- Forge :: SkyboxLabs
- Maps & content :: Sperasoft
- Modes & Elements :: Certain Affinity

So that's not the end of Halo Infinite when it comes to multiplayer.

For your information, these layoffs are not the only loss of 343 Industries:

Between this, the positions transferred to other teams within MSFT and the non-renewal of external contractors, 343 Industries is actually losing 1/3 of its workforce.

On the other hand, these departures mainly impacting the teams in charge of the production of visual and narrative content for the title are the result of 2 divergent visions within 343 Industries:

A small team had drawn up the (possible) plans for the continuation of the Major-117 adventure, supported by Mr Staten, then proposing:

Several short DLCs for Infinite leading to a bigger expansion for the game via a new campaign within it.

The new management team of 343 Industries, following the departure of Bonnie Ross, had drawn up another assessment of the campaign and the single-player narrative content offered by Halo Infinite.

Unfortunately against the latter and rather for the benefit of the multiplayer part..

According to them:

- Narrative solo content has proven to be difficult to produce over the past few years
- Not offering strong player retention
- Not allowing viable monetization for the sustainability of the studio and the teams

A decision will then have been made not to continue production of narrative single-player content for Halo Infinite, or for Halo in general at this stage. So, faced with the financial expectations that Halo Infinite did not meet, the leaders of 343 Industries were forced to act.

These dismissals are the consequence of several factors: - Microsoft's overall preparation for a possible recession - the high operating costs of the studio for financial objectives not achieved - multiplayer-focused strategy for the future of Halo Infinite

343 Industries isn't going away, however, the "Game Development" part of the studio is going to fade away. The projects & the future of the studio will thus reside in a 2-point strategy: - Coordinate Halo Infinite follow-up - Franchise the Halo license to other studios

Coordinate Halo Infinite follow-up By keeping several people in charge of project management and balancing Halo Infinite, 343 Industries can delegate content production to external studios, as was already the case for Season 2.

As a reminder, a large part of the content of Season 2, whether it is a question of multiplayer maps as well as elements in the store and the Battle Pass were designed by Sperasoft as well as Certain Affinity. This type of production will thus continue for 2023.

Franchising the Halo license to other studios Already in 2020, Xbox Publishing had approached other studios to imagine the design of new Halo experiences, delegated but supervised by Xbox Game Studios and 343 Industries.

With the downsizing and loss of talent for producing narrative single-player content, this is the approach that will be favored in the future, allowing other studios to build, with permission, Halo titles, at scale. and lower budget.

These studios will notably be able to have access to certain resources of 343 Industries, including the Slipspace engine: This one, property of the studio, continues to be updated, perfected and improved, the studio keeping within them the engineering team in charge of the engine.

This would therefore lead, in the future, to more Halo video game products, therefore several games, which could explore different ideas and approaches to licensing. 343 Industries would therefore find a place of license manager, as it was during Halo Legends.

In summary: The main changes to come will be:
The loss of internal game development capabilities at 343 Industries
The openness to making Halo available as a franchise that can be distributed to outside studios for the creation of new games.

Different scenarios had been studied, in particular the possibility of stopping and purely and simply assigning the license to another studio, the first piece of information we had and which then seemed shocking to us.

In the end, that will not be the case.

In the end, if we have to give you our personal opinion:

Apart from the disastrous human toll & loss of credibility of 343 Industries, these are positive changes for the future.

343 Industries focused on the planning, and the partners on the content.
If you like Halo Infinite's multiplayer, then this is good news:

Each having their role and thus being able to mobilize their respective forces on the main sites, the monitoring and seasonality of the game will be ensured.
If you like Halo in general, this is also good news:

New Halo games will see the light of day, in more diverse and varied styles than an FPS made as a game and the only game in the series over several years.

That said, it will take time.

On the other hand, yes, if you were hoping to have narrative single-player content in the years to come, then this is a great loss for you and we completely understand the heartbreak this can cause you.

One of the reasons for 343 Industries' lawsuit is in particular the very positive image that the Master Chief Collection enjoys with Microsoft:

In their concern for the eco-system, the MCC is seen as a jewel whose fitness is fully welcomed by Microsoft & Xbox.

We also openly apologize to you: before publishing our last emotional tweets, we should have waited for the confirmations that we had asked our sources, so as not to unnecessarily alert the Halo community.

We hope that you have all the information you need to understand the impact of these dismissals on 343 Industries' strategy regarding Halo Infinite and the license.

Your expectations will tell you if these changes are positive or negative.

If we weren't clear enough in our Thread, ask your questions, we will try to answer them as best we can according to our information.

Thus, it is not the end of 343 Industries and even less that of Halo.

It is the end of a closed cycle, of a new orientation allowing to refocus the license and to open new horizons to it.

We were wrong: Halo is not over.

[about if other studios could make single player stuff] At this point, we have no information on this, but from what we deduce, yes it is entirely possible indeed: an external studio could be entrusted with a narrative single-player Halo game, supervised by 343 Industries for , for example, to ensure narrative coherence.

 

[Pop]

 

[Mister Wolf]

Time to switch to UE5.

 

[OverHeat]

Time to switch to UE5.

Why?

 

[SenjutsuSage]

Even if the game got 10/10 and there was no Craig, Halo isn't going to be a big hit like the Xbox OG and 360 days. It's an old school shooter which lots of gamers arent into sci-fi like the old days of Doom, Quake, Unreal, Halo.

We already saw it come crashing down with WWII. Modern Warfare (COD leading the pack) made sci-fi shooters even less important and interesting. I played Unreal back in the day on my Pentium. You got rocket launchers, that nuke bomb rocket, blue laser and blow up sphere. Crazy shit. As soon as WWII and MW games came out, I'm playing them. I like my shooters more grounded.

Thats not to say colourful crazy stuff doesn't sell. Fortnite and Apex F2P do well. And so does Destiny. But Halo is really still striving for that legacy shooter fan from 2004. Times have changed.

Many sites gave it exactly that. It was that good a game. 10 doesn't automatically mean perfect, however. It can also mean that the game was such an awesome experience that what, if any, minor things you didn't like just weren't enough to tarnish the game. Elden Ring sure as shit isn't perfect, but it still got many 10s nonetheless, ones I now believe it deserves after initially being unconvinced.

 

[TransTrender]

Time to switch to UE5.

I thought they already did for their unannounced Battle Royale version of Halo Infinite

 

[Mister Wolf]

Why?

Because Infinite needs to die. It's a sunken cost fallacy at this point. Halo 6 should be built on UE5.

 

[Hendrick's]

What did all you people calling for 343 to be shut down think was going to happen to their employees? The game has launched and 343 is under new leadership. Cuts were expected.