I get that keeping the Halo series somewhat exclusive is necessary to drive higher sales for the Xbox, but honestly as it stands Microsoft and 343i could make a lot of money porting over the original trilogy to Steam in a collection.
Both Halo CE and 2 are already on PC and 3 came out back in 2007 for the 360. After the Master Chief Collection releases they’re not going to be able to gain any more money from the old trilogy, so why not just slap the original 3 games into a collection and find a way to integrate Forge World with Steam Workshop to keep a steady stream of custom content being created?
They could also experiment with cross-platform play; perhaps finding a way to link up Steam servers with Xbox Live servers to enable mouse and keyboard players to go up against console players, boosting the player populations of both games.
Nothing on the Steam right now can compete with Halo’s multiplayer as no other game fills the Arena niche. Counter-Strike and TF2 are the most popular FPS games, and both games don’t even have a single-player campaign. 3 games’ worth of singleplayer and a multiplayer experience that thus far has not been replicated on the PC market means that Microsoft could literally beat Valve’s games into submission on their own platform by offering a far better product.
DLC could also be created in the form of 2 expansions: a Reach multiplayer map pack which includes all the maps from that game, and a single player add-on which throws in the ODST campaign. Sell both for $15 each and that’s a potential $80 net gain per sale assuming a standard price of $50 for the base collection.
And that’s before you even consider the potential goldmine that can be created in the form of an ongoing in-game economy like CS:GO, which gives you random case drops after multiplayer matches that contain skins for weapons that you can unlock for $2.60 each. That microtransaction model can’t be replicated on the Xbox!
In order to keep the Xbox One going strong and not sabotage its sales, Microsoft can continue to keep Halo 4, 5, and 6 exclusive to console, at least up until Halo 7, 8, and 9 come along, whereupon 4, 5, and 6 could also be released in a collection on Steam. Not to mention that they could also create exclusive armor effects which are accessible only for those who’ve also purchased the Xbox version of the games, like the flaming helmet effect, in order to encourage purchases of both versions.
And I say this as a lifelong Halo fan who’s purchased the limited Xbox 360 bundle for Halo: Reach, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars, and a good few years of Xbox Live before that whole Games for Gold promotion thing came along which gave everything away for free. I don’t see how a release on Steam wouldn’t benefit Microsoft and 343i.