Bungie Claims That Without Halo, "Xbox Live Wouldn't Have Made It"

Will they say the same about halo 2 selling copies of Vista? They locked it to vista to sell more copies even though it still was a directx 9 game.

I tend to agree with the bungie studio manager here but look at it from a little different perspective - what if Halo was a PS2 exclusive, and how would that have framed online gaming.

If it were a ps2 exclusive it would have been more like a hidden gem that no one played online, my ps2 didn't even have an ethernet output

It would have bombed.

I never played halo 2 online but if anyone deserves to make a statement like that, it's bungie. Who would argue?

I enjoyed Battlefront 2 on Xbox Live. Getting rocket kills on snipers was awesome. I also enjoyed the Halo games online.

Thing is i agree with this, Halo 2 was pretty much the thing to play on XBL back in the day. I did play Battlefront 1 and 2, and Jedi Academy but the community on Halo was so much bigger.

I loved the free month that came with Halo 2. I thought the campaign was not very good compared to the first game, but the support for xbox live really made the game stand out. That said, I think that Bungie fellow is overstating their influence a bit. It was only a matter of time before console shooters started pushing more online gaming in order to catch up with PC versions. The real influence of Halo comes from the fact that there were very few decent shooters on consoles back then, and even fewer on Xbox.

Without Halo we also wouldn't have douche bag gamers and stereotypical FPS games. Of course if it wasn't Halo is would be something else.

call of duty's cut scenes made FPS what it is today. halo was a very open sci shooter.

I can personally confirm douchebag gamers have existed at least as early as CS players had headsets, and I'm guessing even earlier than that

modding halo on my xbox was the best. auto shotgun that shot tank rounds or the rocket launcher that shot multiple rockets from different angles (also coming down from the sky) were the best.

my fondest moments in halo 2 were owning all my friends who thought they could hang with me and getting owned by others and they turn around and teach me the ways of the spartans.

you guys forgot that halo 2 brought about matchmaking for XBL, online parties, etc.

i agree with bungie!!! but i dont think live would have failed... it would however be at least 5 years behind and would not have as many amazing online coop & mp games... bungie dominated online play with halo 2, nothing even came close... they showed developers there is alot of money to be had in online gaming on consoles...

Oh, Harold Ryan has a time machine to change the past? Anyways, we don't know if XBL without Halo 2 would have failed or not. I dislike when anyone makes statements like these when they can't prove it. Sure Halo 2 brought features to XBL which we all love, but if there wasn't Halo 2, we would just play something else.

Halo. 2 mech assault chaos theory

No "old" xbl memories for me. Took 2 weeks of leave with some active duty buddies. Week 1 - Drinking and playing Halo 2 direct connect (3 of us had never played halo before including me). Week 2 - Halo 3 launches, we all go out buy 360's, live, halo 3 and a bunch of booze. Twas a good two weeks.