Microsoft's Halo Mary
As someone who bought and played the original Xbox simply for access to Halo, it's hardly a surprise to me that they're remaster-chiefing that original version for the 25th anniversary. But where they're releasing it is truly wild:
Remaking a classic video game with modern technology to reach both nostalgic and new audiences has become commonplace in an industry facing financial challenges.
So it was not a huge surprise when Microsoft announced on Friday that it would release an updated version of Halo: Combat Evolved next year, the influential game’s 25th anniversary.
One detail, though, was astounding.
The sci-fi franchise that has helped the company sell four generations of Xbox consoles and generate billions of dollars is coming to the Sony PlayStation, Microsoft’s direct competitor, for the first time. It is the equivalent of Disney letting Mickey Mouse roam Universal Studios.
Yes, it's like that, but with guns.
This is, of course, not an entirely new strategy for Microsoft – they've been slowly but surely releasing Xbox games onto other platforms for the past year or so. But this is Halo. The one franchise that truly set Xbox apart.
Of course, that hasn't exactly worked for Microsoft over the past 25 years as they're still far behind Sony in the console race, and now once again behind Nintendo, who (re)found their footing with the Switch (and Switch 2) after the Wii U stumble.
At the same time:
It is an effort to reach more gamers and to maximize revenue after the company opened its wallet to acquire major studios. Microsoft spent $69 billion on Activision Blizzard, which makes Call of Duty and Candy Crush, and $7.5 billion on ZeniMax Media, whose portfolio includes The Elder Scrolls and Fallout.
As of now, this sure looks like it will go down as one of the biggest blunders in Microsoft's history.1 Call of Duty and Candy Crush remain hits, but they're in no way moving the needles as Microsoft had clearly hoped. You don't spend $75B+ to be the third place player that's bleeding money. Obviously.
So the shift has been to "Xbox Everywhere", but that's starting to feel like it's not going to work either – and that this Halo maneuver might be the last ditch effort to make it work.
Microsoft leaders hope that bringing its premier franchises to new audiences will ultimately attract more customers into the Xbox ecosystem. Booty said consumers no longer have a strong attachment to the actual devices they use to play games.
“Our biggest competition isn’t another console,” he said, adding, “We are competing more and more with everything from TikTok to movies.”
On paper that makes some sense. But in reality, that doesn't seem to be the case right now with Playstation and Nintendo. It's more just that it hasn't been working for Microsoft.
There are signs the strategy is working.
Between April and July, six of the top 10 best-selling games on Sony’s consoles were Microsoft properties. Near the top was Forza Horizon 5, four years after it was initially released for Xbox consoles.
Microsoft declined to provide PlayStation 5 sales figures for Forza Horizon 5 and Gears of War: Reloaded, a remake that was released in August. Sony did not respond to a request for comment.
By releasing the first Halo and Gears of War titles on the PlayStation 5 decades later, Microsoft is introducing lucrative franchises to loyal Sony gamers. (Games in both franchises, including a 2011 remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, have been playable on computers.) That exposure may pay dividends if Microsoft brings Gears of War: E-Day, which has a 2026 release date, and Halo Infinite’s eventual follow-up to the PlayStation 5.
Okay, but does Microsoft really want to be just a games publisher? Of course not!
Any full-price sales on Sony’s console would be particularly important for Microsoft.
Tens of millions of Xbox owners subscribe to Game Pass, a subscription service whose highest tier provides immediate access to all Microsoft-published games. The company significantly raised that tier’s prices this month amid reports that its decision to include Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 as part of the subscription cost the company $300 million in sales. A Microsoft official confirmed that the company was also conducting internal tests for free ad-supported cloud access to some games through a program separate from Game Pass.
Yeah, they're flailing about here trying to find an way to square this circle. But come on, clearly there is not going to be one. Microsoft will probably give it one more go with Xbox hardware (something which is undoubtedly already well underway) and then we'll probably start to hear about a winding down of the whole thing. There's too much money to be spent on other initiatives like AI, etc.
Unless putting Halo on PlayStation saves them in some way. Which it won't. It's a Halo Mary. And no one is answering the prayer.
1 This is where Steve Ballmer can thank his lucky stars that the Yahoo deal was blown up back in the day.