…So in light of recent events regarding the delay of the anticipated Halo Infinite, that leaves the Series X without it’s most anticipated launch title, which sucks in a year that’s just really, Really, REALLY going out of it’s way to suck for most people in the world.
BUT AN IDEA HAS POPPED INTO MY SKULL TO HELP TURN THINGS AROUND A SMIDGE:bulb:. I think 343 can turn this around come November with another offer that may well be just as good: Simply have all four main Xbox One generation Halo games (Halo MCC, 5, AND both Halo Wars games) available FREE with Xbox Games for Gold, with a corresponding month or so long DLC sale for all of said games. It’s the logical thing to do for multiple reasons:
A: It’d be a welcome helping of a generous offer for people that are tight on money as is, especially after immediately buying a new console for hundreds of dollars in a time where money isn’t always easy to get.
B: It’d be a Great early Christmas gift for people who’s entire year this far had, well, sucked, as I mentioned a few times before, not to mention a fantastic way to both Hype up Halo Infinite and earn some much needed goodwill from consumers, social media and industry reviewers alike.
C: What better way to break in the Series X then with Four free Halo games, potentially running better on the Series X then their debut console with optimizations, in the absence of Halo Infinite?
D: These four games would more or less cover the entire story of Halo up to this point, allowing player to fully catch up with events, while massively bolstering the population of each game and helping to keep the Halo Community content and stuffed to the brim with new and returning players while they bide their time (and wallets) for Infinite, helping to maximize Halo Infinite sales from the get go since almost everyone’s been able to catch up in advance and get immersed in the full halo experience.
E: On their own, how much revenue can you honestly say ANY of the old halo games pull in at this point on a day to day basis? Story missions, DLC characters, REQ and BLITZ packs… it all adds up even before the price of the games themselves. Halo Wars 2 is probably the most extensive example: $39.99 with the game alone, $59.99 as the complete addition, or $29.99 with the Season Pass apart from the main game, and there are many, MANY individual bits of DLC to buy, so that’s not economic to buy them one by one. BUT, by making the $30 game FREE, then putting, say, a 33% or so (maybe more, maybe less) sale for the DLC, then we have hordes of new and returning players buying up the DLC in FAR higher quantities then if that also had to pay for the game as well. Nowhere near as may people would play a game like Fortnite if they had to pay for battle royal up front, and it’s long been a money tree and success story for epic games. Apply that logic for the Xbox’s premier first party series, and these old games would make the most money for themselves they have in YEARS, all while further hyping and saving the people for Halo Infinite.
Overall, it just seems like common sense to me. Save the news for immediately after a bout of Good news regarding Halo Infinite, throw a small advertisement Campaign in the month preceding it, prepare quality of life updates for the games in time for then, and watch the Halo population triple overnight. It may not be the thing everyone was waiting Five years for, but it’s logically the next best thing to offer in unusual times like this. If you have any way constructive critique to pitch in, be my guest…
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PS, I’m not a regular for this sort of thing, these forums, so how do I put in a picture or gif of video into this as more then a hyperlink? I’m doing this by IPad, so I don’t know. I was going to put in a picture of all the halo games side by side with one another for context.
Alternatively, if four free games with no catch is too much on Microsoft’s end to provide practically, have it so that it’s automatically rolled into each Series X bought and activated, with a 50% sale if purchased aside from that. That way buyers have further incentive to buy the Series X, it does not have to be tied to Games for Gold for a mere month, and it’s still a boon for the games, consumer and provider alike.
While this is a good idea, I think the future of the platform is going to be Gamepass rather than Games with Gold. I think Xbox will most likely give people a free trial with a XSX purchase, which will provide everyone with all of those games you just mentioned. In relation to what you said about quality of life, 343 is already doing that with MCC support over the past few years and up until now. They have been adding seasons, challenges, and other QOL updates to the game. Not to mention that they have ported Reach, CE, 2, and 3 to PC so far with ODST and 4 on the way. That being said, we haven’t seen the community “triple” overnight, so I think its going to take more than just old halo games to bring back a large population. Ultimately, delaying Infinite leaves a huge hole in the halo community which is problematic, but I think a few months of no Infinite won’t kill us in the longrun. Short term yes, but its clear that XB and MS are playing the long game here.
If I were Microsoft, I’d have a year of Game Pass included in the Series X purchase. It would be an insane value and doesn’t really cost them anything to include. You could make it timed so the people that buy it in the first 3-6 months get it.
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> While this is a good idea, I think the future of the platform is going to be Gamepass rather than Games with Gold. I think Xbox will most likely give people a free trial with a XSX purchase, which will provide everyone with all of those games you just mentioned. In relation to what you said about quality of life, 343 is already doing that with MCC support over the past few years and up until now. They have been adding seasons, challenges, and other QOL updates to the game. Not to mention that they have ported Reach, CE, 2, and 3 to PC so far with ODST and 4 on the way. That being said, we haven’t seen the community “triple” overnight, so I think its going to take more than just old halo games to bring back a large population. Ultimately, delaying Infinite leaves a huge hole in the halo community which is problematic, but I think a few months of no Infinite won’t kill us in the longrun. Short term yes, but its clear that XB and MS are playing the long game here.
By quality of life, I had meant more for Halo 5 and Halo wars one. My Hw1 can’t load in at all for me for starters, and as much as halo 5 has been a blessing for me, forge and customs in particular can be… breathtakingly glitchy. Just go into an open forge that’s almost full and see for yourself what I mean.
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> If I were Microsoft, I’d have a year of Game Pass included in the Series X purchase. It would be an insane value and doesn’t really cost them anything to include. You could make it timed so the people that buy it in the first 3-6 months get it.
That’s not half bad… even if it lasted, say, 2-3 months as a minimum, that’s not bad at all
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> PS, I’m not a regular for this sort of thing, these forums, so how do I put in a picture or gif of video into this as more then a hyperlink? I’m doing this by IPad, so I don’t know. I was going to put in a picture of all the halo games side by side with one another for context.
Only monitors can post gifs, but they rarely do. I think the reasoning is it clogs up the forums. You can link to Imgur or something like that once you reach marine rank.
I think, as others have said, that MS’s next gen strategy is extremely focused on Game Pass, in terms of taking it from something that’s still relatively (less and less all the time) niche in the industry and making it into a tentpole in conjunction with services like xCloud.
I can see a November sale or Games w/ Gold featuring MCC and the ODST and Reach DLC’s for it being a nice gesture (albeit a gigantic consolation for missing a five year launch target w/ Infinite), but I sort of suspect that they’d rather message it through Game Pass than Gold or a regular Xbox Live sale. Something like: “Play the entire Halo series for $1 a month,” with one of the now-routine foot in the door for a dollar Game Pass promos we’ve been seeing intermittently since E3 '19. That’s more “on message,” and as someone who’s worked in a sales capacity with Microsoft directly in the past, a huge part of their marketing strategy revolves around “telling a story.”
However they decide to do it, I think something to help alleviate the gaping hole that Infinite’s absence will be from the XSX launch lineup is more of a necessity than just a nice thing to do (even though it is a nice gesture as well).
Sensible, but I’m personally hoping for games with gold for two main reasons: first, they’d be FREE for a month straight, with the only caveats being that they have to get in on it in that timeframe, and you’d have to maintain Xbox Live Gold so long as you wish to own and play them until you buy them in full. And second, a game that’s free and well advertised is bound to attract FAR more players then a game that you’d have to pay even a penny for. Recent woes against apple and google aside, Fortnite recently boasted a solid 12.3 million concurrent players in an ongoing game event, but how many less do you think would have participated if they had to pay for the main mode? If that kind of player base took root in the older Halo games, then Infinite’s immediate sales possibly reach unprecedented heights simply from THAT many new halo fans drawn in by the bait of a genuinely good offer from beforehand.