“Xbox Live wouldn’t have made it Without Halo,” Reckons Bungie

Posted by: Ernice Gilbert November 15, 2012 in Microsoft, News, Xbox Live 4 Comments

Xbox Live would have been dead in the water was it not for Halo, Bungie’s Xbox 360 killer app, says studio.

That’s what Bungie studio manager Harold Ryan told GamesIndustry.biz, adding that the service wouldn’t have been where it is today was it not for Master Chief.

I think Xbox Live wouldn’t have made it. I don’t think the Xbox would be where it is today without Bungie and without Halo.

As a group, we provided both technical and creative guidance and thought leadership that really pushed the limits. We weren’t just a game developer using the service. We were integrated in the design of the service and how it worked. Systems for groups and matchmaking and skill ranking were all things that were pushed the furthest and the hardest by us.

Bungie’s now signed to Activision for ten years, developing for next generation consoles what is believed to be a game-changing experience.

nick

oh jesus christ man get over yourself!
halo had a big hand in the xboxs success, but to say that live would of flopped if it was not for that is just ridiculous!
live at the time was the ONLY online service for consoles, so if you wanted to play online, download content, you HAD to put up with it!
would of been worse, maybe had less features, but not to of survived is just ridiculous!
Ghost250

actually i agree with bungie. if was not for halo, xbox live would have flopped big time. if you look at the time SEGA was the first to come out in the that gen and have online on a console with the dreamcast. an they really didn’t have a big online game to give them the type of success that microsoft got. back then no one was even looking in microsofts direction into halo came out. so what bungie is saying isn’t really far-fetched. makes me sad though SEGA was really ahead of their time.
nick

SEGA sunk because of the titles on offer for the system, if they had some more titles to show off the system they probably would still be releasing hardware today.
halo certainly helped live but there were plenty of other retail and online games to help cement its place in the industry as well.
SHADOWBOXER

i might have to agree with bungie on that, there wasn’t much big games that was fun to play online on the xbox, i’ve played halo 2 live on the old xbox and continued playing it on the 360 when it came out.