Oh my god… I just found out that Halo was out for MAC and it’s published by Apple! Halo is on a non-Microsoft platform. That’s amazing. It can run on MAC OS 9 and 10. But Microsoft played the devil’s avocet when it came to giving Halo back to Mac. As for Halo 2…read below.
Today I just got a piece of history. A very, very, very small piece. Halo 2 sold 500 games at the Woodbury Game Stop the first day in preorders. It is a very profitable game. It’s by far the best selling videogame this year. Halo 2 has only been out for 2 days and already it sold 500,000 copies. That means in a week it will sell over a million. I found out that Halo 2 is much, much more anticipated than Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. I found out – it’s not really people dislike Samus. Some believe including me that Master Chief’s arch-nemesis is Samus Aran and vice versa. Game quality is hardly an issue here when comparing Halo 2 and Metroid Prime 2. Would you rather play as a marine that saves humanity or a bounty hunter that saves humanity? Some say Halo was better because it had multiplayer. Well boys and girls….Metriod Prime 2 has death match, capture the flag, team deathmatch, sniper area and it’s online. Nintendo did much better than you’d expect from a first attempt. They tried to put the “Goldeneye” into “Prime 2” and give Samus a fighting chance at sales.
By the way I found this paragraph really funny.
“Mere weeks after E3 rumors were quickly circulating around the Halo enthusiast community that the unthinkable had happened and Microsoft had purchased Bungie. Though this wasn’t that much of a surprise as Microsoft had the spare cash and had been waiting in the wings looking for something to spend this cash they’d found behind their sofa to help the launch of their furniture piece console, the X-Box.” – Gamegossip.com
We all knew Microsoft wanted to keep the best games for PC (x86 to you geeks out there). I think they felt sorry about MAC gamers, after all some MAC gamers are also loyal Xbox fans so they gave them back the game. Somehow, Apple (also called MACsoft) got the go-ahead to publish Halo on their platform. I also find it ironic that Microsoft is using the powerful PowerPC platform, the Xenon. Hmmm, there might be a connection with this. Bill Gates said, “We’ll trade you Halo for use of your PowerPC technology on Xenon?” In my opinion Apple had nothing to loose….after all the Xenon will not have an Apple logo on it? Who would care? For all I know there could be Apple technology under that black case of the Xbox. The only reason I know Xbox is in fact x86 is I happen to know it’s powered by a Pentium 3. Pentium 3s aren’t used in PowerPCs.
Retro Studios
Developer of Metroid Prime is Retro Studios – a fully funded 2nd party developer of Nintendo. It’s probably the single largest Nintendo faction in the United States in terms of employees besides Nintendo of America. Retro is located in Austin, Texas. Over 200 employees worked on Metroid Prime 2. The founder of Retro, Jeff Spangenberg, was the founder of the developer who made Turo:k Dinosaur Hunter for Nintendo 64. Turok 2 got a 9.2 out of 10 when IGN.com reviewed the game. It was also a favored version over the PC game of the same name. Last year he left Retro Studios to form Topheavy Studios.
Bungie
Bungie is a new developer whose first game was Halo. What most of you don’t know is Bungie was making Halo for Macintosh and the game was going to be published by Apple. On June 9th 2000, Bungie became a 2nd party developer of Microsoft Game Studios and developed Halo for PC and Xbox. Like Retro Studios, their project sold so well that they have the ability to work to develop on game and be able to pay all the employees from the sales. Remember, Halo is not a Microsoft trademark – it is a Bungie trademark. Obviously Halo 2 online feature will add to the replay value 10 fold. Although the PC version of Halo had online multiplayer and it sold less than the Xbox version. Go-figure. Remember the PC version? The drag was lag in the PC Halo multiplayer via Internet. Halo was released for MAC under Microsoft Game Studios (now ironic).It was a much better LAN game. Halo for PC seemed a bit rushed. I mean when the PC version came out – everyone bought the Xbox version or bought an Xbox too play the Xbox version. I feel I was the only one who bought Halo twice. Including today I spent a total of 150 dollars on all games. Now Halo for PC is only 20 bucks….if you can find it.
Gearbox Software
Gearbox received their fame by being the co-developing the PC and MAC version of Halo. The graphics are better than Xboxes. The PC version had good reviews – mostly in the 8.5 – 9.5 range according to many Internet gaming sites. Now their next project is making Brothers of Arms which is really “Band of Brothers: The Game”. Brothers of Arms is coming out for PC/Gamecube/PS2/Xbox.
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