Franchises that are around for a long time inevitably go through changes; they change designs, developers and sometimes genres. With Bungie having finally released Halo: Reach (the developer's last Halo game) and Microsoft now talking about how Halo releases need to be more frequent, we can't help but wonder how the franchise will hold up in the coming years.
If ever there were a mascot for the Xbox platform, Master Chief would be it, but if Microsoft is going to start "milking" the Chief and Bungie's not along for the ride, we do think gamers will take notice. IndustryGamers decided to ask a few of our analyst friends about Halo's future.
"I am concerned. Not only does there seem to be pressure for more but you don't have the original development team and MS has made lots of changes in internal development. Add on that the franchise will be 10 years old next year....the original core may have arthritis by now. It is obviously a great franchise but my perception is it may have peaked," DFC Intelligence's David Cole told us.
Fellow DFC analyst Jeremy Miller agrees. He commented, "A big reason for mega hits like GTA, CoD or Halo stems from (a) creative leadership (b) experienced project management and (c) studio culture around professional quality and work effort. Consider that Treyarch made huge strides in CoD WaW coming from the weaker quality CoD3 but it still could not match Infinity Ward quality or creativity even using the same underlying tech."
He continued, "Without Bungie it will be extra challenging to recreate the magic that produced something like Halo: Reach. Otherwise the main challenge for future MS Halo games will be external competition. While 'Halo' on a game package will definitely draw sales, there are many fans who have high awareness of 'Bungie' and will at least give its next offering under ATVI publishing a fair shot. This alone does not spell doom for Microsoft's future Halo releases but it is a non-trivial competitive threat at minimum."
"On the whole, the odds for future MS Halo games achieving same or greater sales success seems long unless something profound happens inside MS that we don't know about. To their credit Halo: Reach is certainly delivering on sales and review scores."
Mike Hickey of Janco Partners doesn't see "milking" really happening, but he admits that without Bungie, it's not going to be the same. "Bungie is an exceedingly high caliber studio, with top industry talent; yet it was clear their passion for future Halo games had diminished. We do not believe Microsoft would compromise the franchise with excessive iteration pacing. Good or bad, with a new studio developing future Halo games the franchise will never be the same," he said.
Arvind Bhatia of Sterne Agee said, "I think it will be hard to top the success of Halo: Reach without Bungie. My guess is future Halo games will still be big but not of the same level."
The one "dissenter" in the analyst group was EEDAR's Jesse Divnich, who told us that he doesn't see the change in developers for Halo as a really big deal and Microsoft will take special care of Halo regardless.
"The Halo franchise will always be a pillar for Microsoft and its home consoles, regardless of the developer who works on it. Bungie is a top tier developer with the best talent in the industry, which was a key factor in building the Halo franchise. Now that Master Chief is known worldwide, I have no doubt that Microsoft will ensure that only the best talent will work on future iterations of the franchise," Divnich said.
He continued, "Sales of any franchise fluctuates, especially in the fierce competitive landscape of the FPS genre, which ironically Halo helped build, but I remain unconcerned about the future of the Halo brand. Simply put, Halo will always be a multi-million unit seller for Microsoft...unless they try another RTS. Halo will always be a driver of not just Microsoft consoles, but innovation in the FPS category. And I am sure Bungie themselves wish the best for the future of the franchise."
Update: We just got this last-minute response from Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities as well:
"It's really hard to predict because of the change in developer. I think that if Bungie kept making Halo games, there would be demand for a long time. I'm in the 'every two year' camp for most franchises, they seem to perform best on that time line. Games that come out more frequently (sports, Tony Hawk) seem to fade pretty fast, and games that come out less frequently tend to thrive, but run the risk of becoming stale. We'll see what happens with Max Payne, for example (at least 6 years since the last one). If Microsoft can bring out a Halo game every two years, they can probably sell enough to justify the development expense without destroying the brand."
5 Comments
September 24, 2010
I agree but I feel like "peaked" is the wrong word. The Bungie era of Halo is OVER. Halo will never be the same and that isn't a bad thing. If 343 is competent then the franchise will be fine maybe better.
September 25, 2010
I remember a article talking about Microsoft going to a Square kind of development cycle. Basically they have FF13 and FF14 and FF15 in development at the same time with three different development teams. Large ones. if that is the case then it will be fine. If they plan on increasing the team by 30% and doubling the games made, then I would say bye, bye! It will NOT happen. Microsoft is learning the kick back effect from not have 1st party games, and LOTS of them that are AAA.
September 26, 2010
While future Halo games may not sell as well as the Bungie era ones did, this franchise has definitely not peaked yet. Future games in the series will continue to move mutiple millions of copies, especially when they finally bring Master Chief back. If Madden can still be a top seller every year after 20+ years than Halo will also continue to do well, as long as they don't have any overly negative release.
September 27, 2010
The problem is that Halo has heretofore been about a very specific conflict, which we've seen depicted the beginning middle and end (not in that order). There are places to go from here, but it's less obvious and would take an inspired developer to do. Either that, or redefine what Halo means as a franchise, and have someone else come in and do their own spin on it. They're all fraught with risk, and there's no guarantee that whatever studio picks up the slack for Halo will have the same "magic", particularly for the multiplayer, which I would say is the most enduring part of the franchise.
September 27, 2010
Well, there's the Halo story arc, which has pretty much been covered. But is that really the key to the success of the franchise? I think it's the multiplayer online gaming... which really is about the cool weapons, armor, vehicles, maps, and the game balance. If that's the case, you can just start a new story arc based on the background, and just create a new story arc. Spartan and Elite together face a new menace that threatens to destroy both of them... Not so hard to envision. What they need is a good development team that can create new things and balance them well.