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.