Splitscreen needs to come back,
do you guys realize how often people are interested in buying an Xbox One, and talk to me about purchasing one for Halo 5? And I have to break the news that there’s no splitscreen, and it physically HURTS me to have to tell them this.
Every single person I tell this to, you can just FEEL how disappointed they are by it, and all I can do is sit there and endure it. Nothing makes that better. There’s nothing I can say that will make them feel better or reinforce their interest in buying an xbox. “Yeah no worries though man you can buy gold packs and you MIGHT get what you want!!!” “Oh it’s cool bro, it’s 60 fps!”
Just today, an old friend of mine was talking to me about getting an Xbox One S because he and his brother used to play a lot of Halo back in the day, and he thought they might be able to bond again like they used to, by playing Halo 5. I had to tell this guy that no, no he can’t play splitscreen Halo 5 with his brother. Let’s look at what you missed here 343:
- An opportunity to bring not one, but two old franchise fans back into the fold
- not one but two possible revenue streams for your stupid req system
- opportunities for both of those new players to introduce Halo 5 to new friends that they have made since Halo 3 was popular, to the franchise again now.
- The social media word of mouth marketing that those two people might have talked about on their Twitter, Facebook feeds, etc.
- The positive brand perception of these two people. Imagine, you have two brothers who bonded over halo, they’re gonna associate those warm memories with Halo forever. NOT ANYMORE THEY WON’T. Even if those two brothers never play a Halo game again in their life, say someone at work starts talking about videogames, they’re gonna say “I used to play halo a lot, but now it’s not the same. It’s lame and they took out splitscreen…” Would you rather them say that or “Man, when I was younger I absolutely adored playing Halo 3 with my brother.” ?
I can’t help but feel the whole “Just buy another xbox!” approach is narrow minded and doesn’t consider the big picture. With splitscreen, your game practically markets itself! I can SHOW my friends how awesome the game is, and when they go home they’re gonna buy a box anyway because they don’t wanna just only play it when I’m available to hang out.