I don’t know if posting links to articles is allowed or not. I tried checking the forum guidelines, but the guidelines link instead diverted me to a page about Halo 5 and all the awesomeness to expect from it…soooo I’m going to post this one. It’s a good read, and I think it reflects the opinions of many people who unfortunately are not the most vocal when it comes to speaking up about something they don’t like. If I’m violating something, I’d appreciate a notice so I can fix it instead of an outright ban since the guidelines link does not work.
So there’s a lot of controversy about the split screen co-op decision made, and now the Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has voiced his explanation as to why split screen was cut. Basically, their “data” shows that people are too busy nowadays to go to their buddy’s house and sit down to play games with them. Absurd. I’m 28 years old, went to college, got a good job, and worked pretty much full time throughout college. Myself and many of my friends always found time to actually get together to play games. Even after college after we’ve all moved our separate ways and got “grown up” jobs, we still find time to get together here and there, despite our “busy” lives. And those times we get together are infinitely more fun than time spent playing over the internet. I’ve been playing Halo since the first one came out. I can say with all honesty that the best and most fun memories I have of this series came from sitting down with family or friends and playing these awesome games with each other. Being social AND playing a video game. This isn’t about the console’s capabilities or trying to meet a goal, it’s about Microsoft selling more consoles.
I’m sure this game is going to be great, especially the campaign. But me and my friends are all on the fence and talking collectively about whether or not we’re going to buy this game, or just rent it to play campaign. Because even when Halo 5 is a big hit, we’re not sure we want to put our money towards supporting a trend in gaming that we strongly disagree with. The same concept behind why we don’t pre-order games anymore. There’s no reason why they couldn’t simply drop the framerate during splitscreen play to allow for couch co-op. Even if only for two player split screen. For crying out loud, Mario Kart could do it. Not that I’m knocking Nintendo or anything. But seriously, we find ourselves firing up Nintendo’s system every time we get together so we can actually play games TOGETHER.
Halo isn’t the first game to go this route, and it won’t be the last. This has been a growing trend for quite some time. It’s become pointless lately to buy more than one controller for the xbox or playstation. I would gladly take a delay for this game if it meant 343i / Microsoft doing the right thing and making split screen work. Couch co-op is only dying off because the gaming industry has been forcing it out over the years.
I realize there will be very different opinions on this, but please be civil. Have a great day folks : )
- Tipper117