343 Industries Will No Longer Make Halo Games, But Will Oversee Outside Development - Report

Let id take over that would be the best case scenario

Real or not… it needs to happen.

My two cents but it's about time MS handed the development of Halo to someone else. We need some fresh input, some fresh MC stories and some dedicated and SOLID Halo creators doing the job that 343 has fumbled for over a decade doing now. Halo 4 was the last great Halo game. 5, the MCC and now Infinite have dropped the ball in the Halo world. It's just not what it should be and not where it needs to be now. It's no longer a system seller and can be regulated down to a AA game instead of a AAA game. I've found games like Elex and Greedfall and NMS way more fun than Halo at this point. Rest in pieces, Halo. At some point we'll see you again and hopefully you're in better hands Master Chief.

Let Halo rest in peace.

Well, let’s think about this for a second. 343 has done little to improve Halo. Sure, there are bright spots, such as Infinite’s gameplay. But they’ve always been met with equally significant stains, such as the story from all their Halo games.

Microsoft has a stable of competent developers thanks to acquisitions. Namely, Bethesda, and by proxy, ID software. If they can leverage some of the talent from, say for example, the Doom team, this could yield solid results. The key will be for them to properly manage their resources, which is still to be seen as every acquisition so far has either pumped out duds or has yet to release anything substantial.

For what it’s worth, Halo has a solid gameplay foundation, much like Doom 2016. Now, it’s simply a matter of capitalizing on all the missed opportunities and delivering a solid evolution like Doom Eternal did. That may not be a perfectly apt comparison, but there are certainly parallels.

I think the most important thing for Microsoft to realize is that single player games still sell consoles and units, and Sony and Nintendo are the prime examples of that currently. If we look at Sony, God of War, Demon Souls, the Last of Us 1 and 2, Horizon, Ghosts of Tsushima, and more are their staple first party games. All of these are more single player oriented. They leave live service games to third party companies. Microsoft must compete on this front. Currently, their single player lineup is non-existent. I mean, Gears 5 is the last one that I felt made a meaningful splash. And that’s been quite awhile now.

What a damn shame, are there any first party studios at Microsoft that they care about? Or making sure to take care of their valuable properties..or is the game pass sub money so good that it doesn't matter, and they can just continue to buy up major companies to stick on gamepass

Can we please just let this live service trend die already? Please? I'm begging you, video games industry. They suck. Even when good games are shipped as live services, the live service part sucks.

So ,343i became like a Titanic...very big,heavy and hard to manouver...
I play Halo for the campaign and its very annoying they didnt get a single player content out for Infinity in the meanwhile!
I defended 343i for a while coz i think they made made a fantastic Halo 4 and i forgave them the (campaignwise) lackluster Halo 5 but they made every mistake in development of a game there can be with Halo Infinity.
There is one thing at least they got right, controlwise Infinity plays like a charm...it feels just great.

Warzone,Fortnite,Apex etc. they are pumping out PvP updates on a regular basis but 343i needs twice as long for less content???

This rumor is still not confirmed but the idea of other devs taking over the development may be for the good.
On other hand, we had already an example of other devs making a game in the Gears of War franchise and that didnt turned out to be a great success( People Can Fly with GoW Judgement)

Developers don't care because the money rolls in. If it's a typical company, you know if it takes a 500 million loss, it's likely to shut down. When Microsoft gets that hit, it will be just fine. That safety net mentality is probably what is going on in all of the Xbox Game Studios. "It's fine, it'll live" so the extra mile isn't being taken.

When someone goes to the supermarket, a person who has millions are likely to pick up whatever they want. If they are on a rough budget, they will take in consideration and assess whether they need it, or is there a cheaper alternative.

You create competition by launching an Unique Selling Product. This garners attention from the consumers and then the company pitches why we should get on board with them. The company works hard for our money, incentive to create a great product and consumers get a great product. When other companies join in, they compete by creating better products for those consumers.

Xbox simply fails at creating compelling products to get on board with to get an ROI. Gamepass is their "money maker" (it's loss leading) but still can't generate ROI to what they have spent on it. It is a service that relies on 99% of 3rd party content (in which they are trying to buyout and remove from the competition, market and consumers.) Microsoft are out to attack consumers and Playstation spending 80 billion on publishers instead of growing in house.

So you have mentality of "it'll do" staff and a company who refuses to action better USPs and instead attack the market and its consumers. They are spending the equivalent to paying for each of those 10,000 fired employees for 200 years. For Gamepass.

Gamepass is not a bad thing - it is an option, a platform for consumers to choose. Key word - choice. Microsoft couldn't compete through USPs so they are utilising their bank account to loss lead Gamepass, creating unrivaled deals for the consumer - the $1 deal. Which isn't anti consumer or anti competitive. People had choice to get a game full price on Playstation or in a cheap sub amongst loads of others... until Microsoft ensured people cannot choose anymore.

Buying out publishers and removing the option to get them on the competition.

Looks like the whole layoffs thing is more about MS prioritizing AI development in the future over gaming. Sounds a lot like the approach Konami took when they pivoted to gambling machines and licensing their big franchises, and these developments all fit perfectly with their philosophy of trying to pare down into a more service orientated strategy. Not really a terrible idea if you can find the right devs.

Well Microsoft did give them every opportunity and they gave people shit games for it. Time to hand the reigns to someone else. Not sure I like this idea of developers getting more modest budgets, however. When modes and features are dropped and games suffer numerous bugs, a smaller budget for future titles seems kind of counter-productive.

Halo infinite was garbage, MP was okay but I buy halo for the story mode not online. If story is awesome I play multiplayer. The story was so forgettable that I barely remember playing it. I get they wanted an open world but when you found a boss you think they could link a cut scene to it in some of the side quests. The fact they ignored Halo 5 all together and left you to rely on the events of Halo was was BS too. I just wanted to sit on the couch and continue the Halo glory with my son. But I couldn't even do that. There was a workaround for coop for a week and they found time to patch that up real quick, how hard was it to add split screen!? Good riddance 343 focusing More on being politically correct in the officr and selling out over creating a good game. I'm convinced that the youth of today cant write a good script and story to save their lives. To be honest most games have gone to crap Gears 5 wasnt any better

Even if the Activision buyout gets blocked, MS still has several devs that could probably make a good Halo.

This is a mega disaster. Where are those shills that were mentioning its 9/10 GS score and 87 on meta everytime i exposed the game for being a complete mess 😂

"343 canceled couch co-op so it could instead focus on developing Halo Infinite's live-service features."

This should tell you everything about what's happening right now. Couch co-op is a staple of the Halo experience. NO ONE wanted it to be a live service.

The studio is a failure. Two games in a row.

MCC was almost unplayable when it was released. Halo Infinite is awesome to play, but fails as a live service.

They should be shut down.

With how terribly they handle the series. Do we even want them on oversight?

Supervision should be left to people who know what they're doing. And I don't think the people who keep messing up Halo's multiplayer, 4 times in a row, and silently killing Halo Wars. Is a good pick.