Considering the massive popularity of the classic Halo games, the fact that Halo 5 was dropped by HCS (an unprecedented move), and Halo 3 currently being the big Halo game on the competitive circuit, I think 343 would be crazy to not make Infinite a classic style Halo game. Halo’s popularity has drastically dropped since the post release of Halo Reach. And without going on a massive rant, it would make the most sense for 343 to develop Infinite with all of this in mind.
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> Considering the massive popularity of the classic Halo games, the fact that Halo 5 was dropped by HCS (an unprecedented move), and Halo 3 currently being the big Halo game on the competitive circuit, I think 343 would be crazy to not make Infinite a classic style Halo game. Halo’s popularity has drastically dropped since the post release of Halo Reach. And without going on a massive rant, it would make the most sense for 343 to develop Infinite with all of this in mind.
I don’t think that’s as true of a statement as you think it is. Halo has indeed sold fewer copies recently, but Reach sold 5 million less copies than Halo 3 did, and Halo 4 only sold two hundred thousand or so copies fewer than Reach.
The Xbox One games have obviously fared worse - Halo 5 being predicted to have sold 4 million less copies than Halo 4. But surely it’s important to remember that the Xbox One is still estimated to have sold less than half as well as the Xbox 360 before it. I think if you were to take the Halo sales numbers as a percentage, where you have game sales / console sales, you’d find that Halo 3 is just a crazy anomaly, and that while Halo 4 did indeed do worse than Reach, and 5 possibly worse than 4, the franchise isn’t dying in the way people seem to think it is. The Xbox One was just a very poor performer in the console market, and a lot of people who bought Halo 3, probably jumped ship to PlayStation 4 day one because of the confusion and price gap at the launch of the system. As long as the next console launch isn’t a staunch failure (and I have enough faith in Phil Spencer to think it probably won’t be), I would think that almost no matter what Halo Infinite will at least recapture the sales Reach managed.
I think you’re right though - Halo probably is bleeding. But I don’t think Halo is bleeding out as fast as people often imply.
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> > 2533274807993125;1662:
> > Considering the massive popularity of the classic Halo games, the fact that Halo 5 was dropped by HCS (an unprecedented move), and Halo 3 currently being the big Halo game on the competitive circuit, I think 343 would be crazy to not make Infinite a classic style Halo game. Halo’s popularity has drastically dropped since the post release of Halo Reach. And without going on a massive rant, it would make the most sense for 343 to develop Infinite with all of this in mind.
>
> I don’t think that’s as true of a statement as you think it is. Halo has indeed sold fewer copies recently, but Reach sold 5 million less copies than Halo 3 did, and Halo 4 only sold two hundred thousand or so copies fewer than Reach.
>
> The Xbox One games have obviously fared worse - Halo 5 being predicted to have sold 4 million less copies than Halo 4. But surely it’s important to remember that the Xbox One is still estimated to have sold less than half as well as the Xbox 360 before it. I think if you were to take the Halo sales numbers as a percentage, where you have game sales / console sales, you’d find that Halo 3 is just a crazy anomaly, and that while Halo 4 did indeed do worse than Reach, and 5 possibly worse than 4, the franchise isn’t dying in the way people seem to think it is. The Xbox One was just a very poor performer in the console market, and a lot of people who bought Halo 3, probably jumped ship to PlayStation 4 day one because of the confusion and price gap at the launch of the system. As long as the next console launch isn’t a staunch failure (and I have enough faith in Phil Spencer to think it probably won’t be), I would think that almost no matter what Halo Infinite will at least recapture the sales Reach managed.
>
> I think you’re right though - Halo probably is bleeding. But I don’t think Halo is bleeding out as fast as people often imply.
It is a common misconception but at the time of Halo 5’s release there were more Xbox ones sold in 2015 than Xbox 360’s circa 2007. Halo 5 didn’t just under perform relative to Halo 4, it is likely to sell less than ODST. Keep in mind while Halo 4 was a financial success the player population plummeted and Halo 5 hasn’t exactly set the world on fire.
While Halo certainly not dying by any reasonable measurement, it has dropped off considerably in terms of its broader appeal. And lets keep in mind that AAA publishers can be anything but reasonable. When high profile games can sell millions of copies and yet still manage to under-perform next to their ludicrous expectations, it can still lead to otherwise healthy franchises ending up on the chopping block.
A 4 million copy drop in sales is not going to go unnoticed and again while its not like MS is going to end their flagship series any time soon, let’s not stick our heads in the sand and pretend hasn’t been in at least a slump the past few years.
@ PhonicCanine99 and WerepyreND
If by “4 million less copies” you are referring to the “over 5 million copies sold”, remember that this was in the first three months. For context, in the same time period Halo 3 had sold “only” 8.1 million copies even though it ended up selling over 14.5 million copies in its lifetime. Halo 5 has almost certainly sold over 6 million copies by now, and it’s entirely possible that it will end up in the same ballpark as Halo 4 and Reach.
Needs to be balanced
And what about the thrust or dodging movement?
Honestly, there is a reason that the Halo games since 4 and 5 have died so quickly and everyone stopped caring about them. It’s because the game has changed so much since the originals, they betrayed the hardcore fanbase by adding things like sprint and abilities.
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> @ PhonicCanine99 and WerepyreNDIf by “4 million less copies” you are referring to the “over 5 million copies sold”, remember that this was in the first three months. For context, in the same time period Halo 3 had sold “only” 8.1 million copies even though it ended up selling over 14.5 million copies in its lifetime. Halo 5 has almost certainly sold over 6 million copies by now, and it’s entirely possible that it will end up in the same ballpark as Halo 4 and Reach.
Yeah the 5 million stat is the one I was referring to. I was trying to be as conservative as possible in that estimate, because I think it still supports the point I was trying to make: That Halo 3 sold really abnormally well, and that Halo Reach, Halo 4, and Halo 5 probably performed around the same (if you take console sales into account).
Also @WerepyreND I wasn’t saying there was no slump, my point was just to say that Halo 3 just sold insanely well, but that between Reach, 4 and 5, things have probably remained around the same - I was just trying to substantiate the claim that Halo 4 and Halo 5 didn’t actually do the massive damage to the series that people often imply they did (although I guess to truly see the damage from Halo 5, we’ll have to wait until Infinite releases).
Obviously it’s good if another game does as well as Halo 3 did, but I just think people sometimes don’t understand that Halo 3 just did ludicrously well, and the other games have all likely been reasonably stable in terms of performance relative to console performance, as far as I can tell as an armchair statistician.
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> > @ PhonicCanine99 and WerepyreNDIf by “4 million less copies” you are referring to the “over 5 million copies sold”, remember that this was in the first three months. For context, in the same time period Halo 3 had sold “only” 8.1 million copies even though it ended up selling over 14.5 million copies in its lifetime. Halo 5 has almost certainly sold over 6 million copies by now, and it’s entirely possible that it will end up in the same ballpark as Halo 4 and Reach.
>
> Yeah the 5 million stat is the one I was referring to. I was trying to be as conservative as possible in that estimate, because I think it still supports the point I was trying to make: That Halo 3 sold really abnormally well, and that Halo Reach, Halo 4, and Halo 5 probably performed around the same (if you take console sales into account).
>
> Also @WerepyreND I wasn’t saying there was no slump, my point was just to say that Halo 3 just sold insanely well, but that between Reach, 4 and 5, things have probably remained around the same - I was just trying to substantiate the claim that Halo 4 and Halo 5 didn’t actually do the massive damage to the series that people often imply they did (although I guess to truly see the damage from Halo 5, we’ll have to wait until Infinite releases).
>
> Obviously it’s good if another game does as well as Halo 3 did, but I just think people sometimes don’t understand that Halo 3 just did ludicrously well, and the other games have all likely been reasonably stable in terms of performance relative to console performance, as far as I can tell as an armchair statistician.
I don’t personally believe that sales are a good indication of the health of a game franchise. Sales only tell us that people bought the game. They give no information on how well those players actually received the game, and how interested they are in the game in the long term (which I believe is the closest quantifiable metric of health). One way to quantify this is to look at how a game sustains a population over time. Here, I have data from Halo 2 to 4 (link), and there the trend has been that subsequent releases have been worse and worse at retaining the population they start with (and this very much applies to Halo 2 vs. Halo 3, even if Halo 3 had a higher absolute population). We don’t know how Halo 5 fares in this, which is an issue, but I wouldn’t expect it to fare better than Reach from what little we know. In any case, I think this gives a more accurate picture of the situation Halo is in than sales.
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> > > 2533274825830455;1665:
> > > @ PhonicCanine99 and WerepyreNDIf by “4 million less copies” you are referring to the “over 5 million copies sold”, remember that this was in the first three months. For context, in the same time period Halo 3 had sold “only” 8.1 million copies even though it ended up selling over 14.5 million copies in its lifetime. Halo 5 has almost certainly sold over 6 million copies by now, and it’s entirely possible that it will end up in the same ballpark as Halo 4 and Reach.
> >
> > Yeah the 5 million stat is the one I was referring to. I was trying to be as conservative as possible in that estimate, because I think it still supports the point I was trying to make: That Halo 3 sold really abnormally well, and that Halo Reach, Halo 4, and Halo 5 probably performed around the same (if you take console sales into account).
> >
> > Also @WerepyreND I wasn’t saying there was no slump, my point was just to say that Halo 3 just sold insanely well, but that between Reach, 4 and 5, things have probably remained around the same - I was just trying to substantiate the claim that Halo 4 and Halo 5 didn’t actually do the massive damage to the series that people often imply they did (although I guess to truly see the damage from Halo 5, we’ll have to wait until Infinite releases).
> >
> > Obviously it’s good if another game does as well as Halo 3 did, but I just think people sometimes don’t understand that Halo 3 just did ludicrously well, and the other games have all likely been reasonably stable in terms of performance relative to console performance, as far as I can tell as an armchair statistician.
>
> I don’t personally believe that sales are a good indication of the health of a game franchise. Sales only tell us that people bought the game. They give no information on how well those players actually received the game, and how interested they are in the game in the long term (which I believe is the closest quantifiable metric of health). One way to quantify this is to look at how a game sustains a population over time. Here, I have data from Halo 2 to 4 (link), and there the trend has been that subsequent releases have been worse and worse at retaining the population they start with (and this very much applies to Halo 2 vs. Halo 3, even if Halo 3 had a higher absolute population). We don’t know how Halo 5 fares in this, which is an issue, but I wouldn’t expect it to fare better than Reach from what little we know. In any case, I think this gives a more accurate picture of the situation Halo is in than sales.
Yeah I agree that population changes over time are a much better statistic to measure the success of a game, and it is quite worrying that there’s such a stark difference between Halo 2 and Halo 4 there. I just get a bit frustrated when people point at Halo 5’s sales and say “The Halo Franchise is dead and Halo 5 killed it” (or even that Halo 4 dealt the killing blow). I meant only to argue against that perception on the franchise’s downfall in sales.
I think the number of sales of a game is an important factor for a software house, but for multiplayer games like shooters, it does not indicate the success of a game. The most important are the numbers of the online population over time.
H2 and H3 have kept their population almost intact for many years. H4 and H5 instead have seen their population collapse already after the first year.
What does this mean? If we want to be intellectually honest, we avoid blaming competition, modern times, etc. I believe the explanation is very simple:
The old formula was able to create an unyielding fan base because it really excited the players. On the contrary, the new mechanics take hold of a random audience, which is unlikely to be passionate about the long term. At one time it was said that Halo was unique in its kind. Today it is said that it is a game like the others.
I understand the need for 343 to want to innovate and put one’s own into his work. But imho, they are wrong if they turn their backs on the historical fan base. Imho, Modern mechanics should be used in a marginal area of matchmaking, possibly social. Halo’s core should be like H2.
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> Wow, these comments are much more diverse than I had predicted. The community really IS split in half on this subject. 343, I’m sorry you have to deal with such a fanbase 
I’m not sure I’d call it 50/50 when on the front 2 pages the anti sprints are consistently getting 30 upvotes only for the 50% of posts which as pro sprint sprinkled in between to be getting below 20 most of the time
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> > There is no limit to what the speed can be. Sprint is the speed limiting mechanic because you HAVE to move slower in order to shoot or move in any direction except forwards.
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> See, and that makes sense to us. Moving “slower” to fight and fire, and sprinting for mobility and getting to a place quicker. The point of sprinting isn’t to zip around the map firing wildly like it’s DOOM.
except literally the majority of pro sprint posts here are -Yoinking!- about how they don’t want to feel slow
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> > Go play arma then. Halo is supposed to be a run and gun arcade style shooter not a tactical shooter.
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> I’d rather play Halo. A franchise which has been so many things that it’s ridiculous and limiting to say that it’s “supposed to be” anything.
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> > The population has bottomed out since they changed to this odd quasi tactical COD in space gameplay. They tried it twice. It failed twice. Time to move on.
>
> Twice? I think you forgot Reach. Neither has it “failed” twice, as the population has done nothing near “bottoming out.” Stop over-dramatizing things just because you want to stick to the past. It’s still there to play, and is even quite accessable (soon more so) on the Master Chief Collection. You know, while we’re throwing out the dismissive “go play [insert game here]” line.
Not that I like sprint/armor abilities in reach, but in reach I’m pretty sure that sprint actually made you faster unlike halo 4 and 5 because maps were balanced for the base movement speed and sprint was actually something extra that not everybody had.
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> There has already been a topic for this, it’s the sprint debate… And it’s been droning on and on and on about the same thing.
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> Classic mechanics are classic for a reason- they were great when we had them but we should be ready for new changes with new games. Otherwise you may be better off just enjoying the older, classic Halo games instead of expecting 343i to cater to your demands in new titles.
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> And luckily for those diehard old school fans, 343i has been generous enough to bring back all the classic Halo titles in the MCC (except for Reach which is backwards compatible anyway) which you can all still enjoy and find MP matches on to this day.
You’re right, this has been droning on and on for years, your argument is not original in the slightest
Oh yes, they’ve been generous enough to give us a game that still doesn’t 100% work properly to this day with near zero new content.
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> > Why do you think the original trilogy was great without sprint and it didn’t seem like it took forever to get to places?
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> Subjective. Having recently played Halo 3 for the MCC Flight #2, it did seem like it was taking forever to traverse the map.
try C.E. where the fov is higher or doom where you’re sprinting in any direction while being able to shoot with 0 reduction in accuracy at all time. If feeling slow is all you care about, classic movement doesn’t have to feel slow
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> I wouldn’t mind a light thruster still. It isn’t a controversial mechanic. As far as sprint, I kind of miss Reach’s sprint. Something a little faster than movement speed and was timed. If almost everything is made with movement speed in mind, then it wouldn’t hurt to be able to run. I’ve come to accept that sprinting is something widely expected in games and yes it is fun to be a running spartan and feel a little more immersion with the character you’re playing as.
>
> BUT this is something that I would be totally fine with being only in Campaign. If this is in multiplayer, well hey, it’s not the end all be all for Halo. Just keep that dreaded Spartan charge out of multiplayer and slide 
. I also wouldn’t give a damn if Ground pound was axed, I won’t miss it tbh.
to be fair in reach actually made you faster because the majority of players didn’t have access to it and maps were balanced to the majority of players
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> You don’t slow to a crawl. Quit being so dramatic, manx.
when the maps are balanced for sprint instead of running speed it’s a crawl.
If the game plays like classic halo, modern fans will leave
if the game plays like modern halo, classic fans will leave and probably much worse outcome
if the game plays like classic and modern halo then the game will be meh
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> If the game plays like classic halo, modern fans will leave
>
> if the game plays like modern halo, classic fans will leave and probably much worse outcome
>
> if the game plays like classic and modern halo then the game will be meh
The fact that there’s much more interest in classic Halo tournaments says a lot. A large portion of the long-time Halo fans want it to return. So much so, that people are actively making their own Halo games to get the gameplay they’ve longed for for too long (for NO money may I add). 343 would be stupid not to try to capitalize on all of these hardcore fans who would spread the word like wildfire if classic gameplay returned, especially after their mediocre releases as of late.