It might be a multi-million (or is it billion now?) dollar franchise but that doesn’t change the fact it’s a niche piece of scifi media that doesn’t have the legacy and pedigree of Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. It’s also only been around for two decades so it’s not quite the cultural zeitgeist those other franchises are/were.
Sure half a million people played Infinite at launch. But the numbers for Halo 5, MCC, and Infinite now are telling. Halo clearly isn’t as interesting as it used to be and/or players don’t have time because they’ve aged out of it and are too busy with life or are playing other new games that have healthier player numbers regardless of franchise size. Because lots of new games are just good and have no legacy but win awards and beat sales records all the time.
If the game ever only attracted half a million players. And retains a fraction of that. Sales must be abysmal and only supplemented by the store and BP subscriptions that never got played beyond a few ranks after people got sick of playing. That must be a bummer for 343i
I’m referring to available Steam numbers. As Xbox numbers don’t seem to be available.
And I’m talking about the hardcorest of the hardcore. Plays social matchmaking everyday, plays ranked, has a semi-serious clan or at least a regular friends group that plays weekly or daily. Players that still play like it’s 2004-2010 is what I’m talking about. The fans that were the lifeblood of Halo between H2 and Reach. It seems that Halo doesn’t grab those players like it used to.
i’m not talking about casuals that downloaded it because it was free and haven’t played it since week one and over inflated the install base numbers.
It would also seem that Infinite has a huge install base on PC based on the Steam numbers and we can only assume the Xbox numbers are equal but the fact that the game can be played thru Steam or Xbox overlay splits the numbers for PC even further. So I might be wrong. But I do think the assumption that maybe only 1/3 to 1/2 of the total players of the game are serious fans that will play it every day and if not, weekly for 10 years is a safe one.
So true… I had big problems with MCC on xbox one, I saw a huge improvement with MCC and Infinite when I got a series S. Would have got a series X but $900 seemed a bit too much lol
I’ll get hate but I don’t care. Halo isn’t an easy fps to master like cod. Pretty much every friend I have that plays both (oh no another guy with fake friends to boost his narrative !!!) are regular 1.5+ in normal cod and sub 1.0 in halo. Winning a 4v4 isn’t that exciting compared to winning a BR match. It doesn’t have unique heroes like overwatch or moba genre. People don’t grind rank, they get their placement if they bother at all and they are done, they only grind Barbie spartan armor. I see more and more people referring to rank as some arbitrary and meaningless military rank or just a generic number as their “rank”.
Halo campaign is cool but it’s one run and done for MOST. Take away the various features and you are also missing a good chunk of potential population. There’s plenty of other options frankly as well, infinite is the best core gameplay 343 has done but it’s not amazing.
That’s why I prefer Halo. It’s a really challenging game. Leans more into multiplayer being a war games simulation. Unlike CoD or BR games which is just play soldiers. Running around like little kids in the street after school and saying “can’t kill me I have ultimate power X” when you’re about to lose (referring to p2w items in some of those games).
50k on at one time. The game on steam alone is estimated to have 7.8 million and seeing as it is estimated that that is 36% of the playerbase, so the population is probably (my estimation, not exactly right) somewhere from 20-25 million perhaps. That’s not bad, maybe a little on the downside for AAA FPS games but not bad
Depending on where you were located and when you were buying. Secondhand or scalpers were the only way to get a new console. I lucked out F5’ing Best Buy a week before Christmas when they launched.
Ohhh I got a new Series X. honestly, probably could’ve settle for the S, though.
True. I know several people who broke down and bought PS5’s from scalpers… It’s ridiculous. but for my XSX, it was incredibly easy to just download a retail stock app. It sends notifications to my phone and tells me when a retailer is about to drop a console… I waited for the exact second the series x was dropped on walmart . com, and I purchased… I spent a grand total of 20min in a waiting line. not too bad.
Without a Series S to compare to, i cant say for sure. But it runs the game fairly smooth. The desync is still a huge issue though. So no worries there… I still have melees not register 3 - 5 times a night over 20ish games:rofl:
I do play with friends on PC though. I seem to have considerably less crashes.
