Windows Central Insider
Halo: Campaign Evolved is set to release this year for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, and, yes, to the dismay of many Xbox fans, PlayStation 5, despite ongoing drama surrounding Halo Studios
Now, my personal view is that if this helps Halo survive, then as a longtime fan, I’m happy. However, as an Xbox fan too, it feels like Xbox as a brand, especially its hardware division, is on thin ice, at least from my perspective anyway, which may sound extreme.
And yes, I’m aware Project Helix is coming (which I'm excited for), but I digress. Halo appearing on PlayStation still feels weird to me. This is the franchise that helped kickstart Xbox, and now it’s becoming one of several games helping keep PlayStation afloat as Sony continues scrambling after its failed live service push and lack of games.
The exclusives conversation will always continue to swirl around online, and personally, I struggle to think of many reasons to invest in Xbox hardware outside of exclusives, despite Xbox still being my favorite platform compared to PlayStation and Nintendo.
Over on Reddit, one fan, u/Maxkid1995, spotted that GameStop is stocking its shelves with placeholder cases showing Halo: Campaign Evolved coming to PlayStation 5, with them stating: “This is still very insane to see.”
The post received more than 6,000 upvotes, with one commenter saying: “This is pretty much Halo's last chance to salvage any damage done the last decade.” That particular comment alone received more than 3,000 upvotes.
However, as many Halo fans may notice, this now feels like Halo’s third “last chance,” with many fans having said the exact same thing during both Halo 5 and Halo Infinite’s launch periods.
I’ll admit it myself, seeing Halo advertised for PlayStation feels weird, especially seeing it on store shelves. Personally, I do think it’s bad for Xbox as a brand, but at the same time, it also feels far too late for Microsoft to back out of this strategy now.
I also don’t expect Xbox to reverse course on exclusives at all, so I just hope whatever the company does to entice players toward Xbox as a platform is enough moving forward, and that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma can pull it off.
With that said, what are your thoughts on this?
Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll above!
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