Searching for a new Halo

Microsoft needs a new Halo. The old Halo just won’t do it anymore. The highly-anticipated Halo 5 came out----was met with a solid but not truly spectacular 1.4 million, and XBox One was still outsold by the PS4 that week. Then the next week, it got outsold very severely by Call of Duty. And soon enough, Fallout 4 will overtake it in sales as well. To be honest, if Halo 5 sells 5 million, I will be shocked.

Halo used to be king. The franchise has six games that have sold over six million copies. Halo: Combat Evolved became the reason why the XBox survived the first couple years. Halo 2 launched with 2.4 million copies sold within the first 24 hours. Halo 3 sold a phenomenal 13 million copies, becoming the best-selling shooter in the history of gaming. On the XBox 360, the Halo franchise sold an incredible 42+ million---easily being the biggest non-Grand Theft Auto franchise in the seventh generation.

Nowadays however, the power isn’t as mighty. Even though the XBox One has sold a respectable 15 million copies to date, good enough for 28% console market share, the power of Halo has dwindled a bit. There was an awesome Halo pack that included four games with updated content, enhanced graphics, and extra movies between the installments, and this excellent deal sold a feeble 2.6 million. While this sounds like great numbers, it is nowhere near the days of when Halo 2 sold that amount in a week. And that was a decade ago, when the XBox only sold 24 million units overall. Halo has become Super Mario---sells decent, but no longer moves hardware sales like it used to. 

And when I mean another Halo, I don’t mean another shooter franchise, just any type of new IP that can move units. Sony has once again taken over the third-party market by not only having more friends, but also forking over extra money to have exclusive games. The only way the XBox even has a shot at gunning for the ever-elusive crown, it’s time to shift the focus to a new franchise.

For years the competitors searched for a Halo killer. Nowadays we have Call of Duty, Battlefield, Titanfall, and Destiny encroaching on its historical sales run. Even Splatoon has sold a shocking amount of copies and if Nintendo plays its cards right, the NX and the ninth generation will see more from this new and highly successful IP. The competition has improved, so the next Halo may not even have to be a shooter.

The options on the other hand, remain quite deep. Microsoft still has action-packed franchises like Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark, and Blast Corps in its shelf. Titanfall can become bigger. Lost Planet is an unused grouping of games that can be rebooted/revived. Perhaps it’s time to conquer genres that have seen little attention: JRPGs (Could help Microsoft in Japan), adventure/action hybrids (a competition to Uncharted—the Sony darling). Maybe Microsoft can create the next big sandbox game, a Grand Theft Auto killer (I know, good luck).

The point is, unlike Nintendo and their bag of tricks, Microsoft is once again lacking that killer exclusive AAA franchise that can cut into Sony’s lead and even threaten its position on top. It will definitely take a lot more than just one game to defeat the PS4 and the upcoming PS5, but a game can change the entire playing field. Halo did that, as the series would solidify the idea of online gaming and provide the blueprints for doing it correctly. Wii Sports would fling the entire gaming industry into the mainstream—before they moved on to tablet/mobile gaming. In order for the XBox to become the best-seller in the market, they need that huge, huge game that will alter the fanbases. Halo can’t do it anymore, the shooter market got too cluttered. They need something else, soon.

The Giant Elephant in the Nintendo Direct Room

Nintendo unveiled yet another Nintendo Direct making tons of big announcements, including Cloud being in Smash Brothers (this seriously bears repeating, and will be the focus of a future article), Pokemon’s 20th anniversary resulting in a 3DS re-release of the first gen Pokemon games, updates to surprise-success stories Splatoon and Super Mario Maker, and a slew of other things----including that Star Fox game that is going to suck and is going to flop miserably. It was overall a very fun Direct, and a slightly somber one since it’s the first one since the passing of Satoru Iwata.



But there’s a major Nintendo product that has not been fully discussed for an extremely long time: the Nintendo NX.



It is totally understandable that discussing the Nintendo NX would harm some of the momentum of the WiiU (which may or may not even exist at this point). Totally understandable that discussing the NX would demean some of the games currently making money like Smash, Mario Maker, and Splatoon. Totally understandable that if we totally neglect the WiiU, then that long-anticipated Zelda game will be brushed underneath the hype of Nintendo’s next console.

But here’s the thing: the WiiU is over. It’s all over. It will never create mammoth sales (barring an awesome bundle like Smash Bros. U with ALL the characters), it will never escape the last place hole, and the third-party support for the system is all but over. Can you announce the NX and keep the fans in the loop for the WiiU? Of course you can.

WiiU owners have been rewarded for their loyalty in recent months; with Smash Brothers’ lineup becoming more and more beautiful, Splatoon fixing itself many times, Super Mario Maker becoming bigger and bigger, and overall more games being available in the WiiU Shop. But it’s time to hype the NX, Nintendo needs to go all-out on their upcoming console---whatever it is.

They already have the support of Square Enix with Dragon Quest and maybe (MAYBE) a Final Fantasy VII remake. EA and Ubisoft have also (cautiously) voiced some support for the upcoming machine. Nintendo should continuously reward the few that chose to purchase the WiiU with tons of goodies, surprises, and updates, I am not against that. As a matter of fact, it would be nice to see some more Nintendo Store deals and more HD remakes (F-Zero GX, Star Wars: Rogue Leader, MELEE). However, it’s time for them to look ahead and start giving the NX some attention as we veer closer to what might whether be the tail end of the eighth generation, or the beginning of the ninth.

We need details, we need explanations. Nintendo’s secrecy does help them sometimes, but it also damaged them in the eighth generation as they withheld so much about the WiiU that it became generally assumed that it was an add-on to the original Wii system---leading to its dismally slow start. But gamers are now more informed than ever, and demand information now more than ever. You can’t keep us in the dark for so long. We need to see more. We need to see something.





Give us the Nintendo NX. It is time for it, and we are already waiting.