Yesterday, Microsoft surprised the world by saying that Halo Infinite would be postponed until 2021 and, in fact, it wouldn’t be the long-announced release name for Xbox Series X.
I called him, or at least called him, a few weeks ago when 343 first showed photographs of The Halo Infinite’s crusade and that… didn’t seem smart. And avid enthusiasts claim that it was just an “old version” and that the final product would happen very well in this year’s release, it turns out that Microsoft and 343 disagreed.
To be clear, two can be true:
Delaying Halo Infinite is smart, because publishing an unfinished and disappointing Halo name would be worse than posting anything at all, given that it’s Microsoft’s flagship series. And like I said, almost every big AAA game is behind at least a few times, and Halo never was. Most sensitive to all of this, we have the COVID pandemic that makes progression even more difficult. A heist is perfectly understandable.
And yet it’s hard to underestimate how devastating this is for the release of Xbox Series X and/or S Series in November, the release month that has now been confirmed. Microsoft has promised Halo Infinite as its release name from nearly the moment the console was announced, and this will be a rare flagship edition for a next-generation console, which we see infrequently.
But without Halo, the Xbox X Series doesn’t … Nothing. Your first release name will have to be something like Cyberpunk 2077 with the marketing agreement with CDPR, even if it’s a game that will also be on PS4 and PC (as long as it’s not delayed either). Microsoft presented a lot of board games in its most recent showcase and yet Fable, Avowed, Forza and most others are still far, far away. None of them are even close to their launch, and I’d be surprised if any of them arrived before 2022.
You can say, “Well, Sony isn’t in a much better position,” yes. Sony has the merit of getting out of a massive generation of PS4, so even if we were on the back of the default version with the PS5 and X Series without a great first-component edition on launch and sharing only third-party component titles, Sony will probably win only by logo loyalty, some analysts predict a 2-for-1 sales domain that echoes the newest generation. But Sony has nothing, they still have Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which probably wouldn’t be a complete game because it’s more of a spin-off, but that’s something. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see special editions of recent hits from The Last of Us Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima designed for PS5, whether it’s release updates or new editions.
Microsoft has nothing! I don’t look like I’m nasty or a fan of console warfare, but without Halo, they rely exclusively on giant AAA versions of third parties for an indefinite period and a lot of smaller titles like Medium. They have Game Pass, yes, but those great new games probably wouldn’t be in Game Pass for long, unless a crumb like the new Destiny 2 expansion, Beyond Light, that’s launched on it.
Once again, Halo needed to be delayed. It is transparent in the last window, no matter how many excuses have been made for your appearance. But this surely leaves the X-Series dry for an indefinite future, probably until spring 2021 at the earliest, because Halo doesn’t even have a new release date yet. Sony, again, doesn’t have big hitters, but they’re in such a strong position that it doesn’t matter. Microsoft’s most productive weapon is now to achieve low costs for the X and S series, making it the “most productive” option for third-party games they share with Sony and PC. But we don’t know if they will either. It’s not a smart scenario everywhere.
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