343 Headquarters is in Seattle and there have been 3 deaths from corona virus in two nursing homes both 20 minutes from their offices. Could employees at 343 be forced to stay home in the coming weeks? Infinite is late in development, so could this delay the game or is working from home adequate for releasing Halo on time? I hope we get a statement from 343 concerning the Pandemic’s effects on Infinite’s development.
Have some faith, this kind of talk is nerve rattling…
It’s technically possible that the virus will momentarily halt development of Infinite, but we simply don’t know. It’s entirely dependent on how 343i’s internal servers are setup and if it’s possible for them to telework from home.
This late in development? Doubtful, there’s probably very little left to even fine tune honestly.
There are going to be major hiccoughs throughout the supply chain.
Most countries aren’t expected to peak until May/June.
There are going to be a lot of work disruptions; not just at 343… the factories that make / print stuff, the distribution channels, the retail outlets.
I can’t imagine a project of this size not being severely disrupted.
And even if 343 did manage to get everything up and running… surely there are serious concerns that the new consoles will be delayed into 2021 (the factories in China etc are weeks away from getting back into full swing). And there is no way Halo is getting released in advance.
Honestly, if there is a delay, I’m totally fine with it at this point. Put human lives before product. That being said, this thread probably doesn’t have much discussion value. Not to offend OP or anyone, but we probably don’t need to be stoking any potential fires with this.
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> Honestly, if there is a delay, I’m totally fine with it at this point. Put human lives before product. That being said, this thread probably doesn’t have much discussion value. Not to offend OP or anyone, but we probably don’t need to be stoking any potential fires with this.
I’m a little lost to what fires this would invoke?
There’s always the possibility that 343 employees work from home. Game development is one of those professions that you can work on regardless of location as long you have have a good enough PC.
Imo if Infinite is delayed (big if) it’s because Xbox Series X is delayed, not because Infinite’s development is slowed.
Could be delayed since Halo is not just developed in Seattle, there are international team involved too.
I doubt Hi itself is in trouble, but like Breezy and others said before the game itself might not be the issue. Production - especially in China - is on hold or at least slowed down in all electronics based sectors. The most probable outcome is that there will be delays in factory production and delivery, but not a whole lock-down. Meaning the new Series X console and their launch titles will technically speaking still be released on time, but the stock will be drastically reduced to the Corvid-19 related issues at hand. This is all quite sad of course, but human safety comes first and obviously so!
Talking about human safety in the US as a side note, I would suggest to vote for the guy that is pro medicare for all. Just sayn’!
In terms of whether or not it’s possible that Infinite is delayed due to production issues on hardware and physical copies, that’s all certainly on the table. As others have said, it isn’t at all infeasible to do a lot or dev work remotely from home, but I’d also say that collaborative efforts are hindered by this even in the insanely connected world we live in today.
All that being said, I strongly hope that 343i and MS are taking the most proactive approach possible to limiting the risk factor of spreading this thing amdist their teams. Protecting the lives of their employees and, more importantly, the more vulnerable people who their employees interact with outside of the workplace, should be priority #1 in this time of uncertainty.
If Infinite, for any reason, launches late, that is an infinitesimally small price to pay for all of us in comparison to losing lives due to insufficient measures taken now.