Rumor: Microsoft will launch Halo 5 and other Xbox exclusives on PC
There may not be a reason for PC gamers to purchase an Xbox One to play Halo 5 as a recent rumor claims Microsoft will be releasing Xbox exclusives onto the PC.
With the upcoming launch of Windows 10, Microsoft is expected to make it much easier for Xbox One owners to stream their games across a variety of devices. While this is certainly good news for Xbox One owners, it doesn’t really affect PC gamers who only play on computers. That is, unless Microsoft releases Xbox-exclusive games onto the platform, which is precisely what a new rumor is suggesting will happen in the future.
According to several industry sources, games currently listed as Xbox exclusive will eventually launch on PC as a standalone game. “Microsoft are going to be focusing a lot more on the PC gaming side than previously, and they’re also going to be bringing a lot of Xbox platform exclusives to Windows as well,” says one senior PC gaming industry executive. “So this includes some of the biggest franchises in the Microsoft stable like Fable, Forza Motorsport and Halo. They're all forecasted to start coming out on PC in the future."
Forza Motorsport 6, Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Fable Legends are all expected to be released this fall exclusively on Xbox, with the latter being the only exception as it’s confirmed for the PC. If this rumor turns out to be true, having these Xbox-exclusive titles on PC would make a serious case for gamers to upgrade to Windows 10, as we assume that’d be one of the major stipulations Microsoft would make for their release. We'd also be curious to see if Microsoft decides to launch previously-exclusive Xbox games, like the Gears of War series, onto PC as well.
[Via PCR]
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Shacknews
replyDaniel Perez posted a new article, Rumor: Microsoft will launch Halo 5 and other Xbox exclusives on PC
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"Forza Motorsport 6, Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Fable Legends are all expected to be released this fall exclusively on Xbox, with the latter being the only exception as it’s confirmed for the PC."
I'm pretty sure Tomb Raider is confirmed to be a timed exclusive only.
https://twitter.com/XboxP3/status/601984067433803778
Would be nice to see Halo and/or Forza on PC though. Then again MS always says they care about PC gaming and pretty much never comes through.
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Thank you for this valuable contribution to the thread!
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Yeah, it's a fun rumor though! Obviously we'll never get Halo 5 day and date with the XBone, but if it came out 6 months to a year later? I'd be cool with that! They can start with the MC Collection when Win10 is released this summer to test the waters!
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I could see them pushing it through their store if they did offer it on PC as a way of drawing people into using it.
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Or maybe PC sales would be additive rather than subtractive? If the average PC gamer doesn't own an xbone it makes sense.
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The all ighty ollar.
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yes, but wouldn't they make more if people bought xboxes to play those games?
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If they executed it right, they could properly segment the audience to have these games catch the PC market without cannibalizing too much from console sales. Timed exclusives, exclusive content and features, etc.
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Realistically, nobody who is planning on skipping a console isn't going to be pushed into buying by a few exclusive titles, no matter how good they are. Especially not these days when it is very, very easy to have a PC game library numbering in the hundreds for well under $1k total.
They're appealing to a market that has no intent to ever buy an XBO, many because the console gives them nothing they don't already have via their PC. Hardcore PC gamers are highly unlikely to justify a couple hundred dollar expenditure just to get access to one or two games they find compelling. Put those games on PC and you'll net more sales. -
I could be way off base here but the way I see it:
Microsoft conquered the computer marketplace entirely for a long time. At one point it was known/rumored that Microsoft lost money on everything except for Windows and Office and they made so much money on those it didn't matter.
So they focused all of their gaming efforts on Xbox, to the point of cancelling anything and everything PC gaming related to go all in on Xbox. Ensemble Studios made PC RTS games... fuck em they're gone. Flight Simulator is only good on PC... fuck it, give it the axe. Halo 3 on Xbox 360 only will sell more 360's, bye bye PC port.
And it basically worked - Xbox 360 more or less "won" the last generation (technically it was the #1 seller in consoles not named "Wii") and the Xbox division became profitable for the first time ever.
So then they get bold. They'll eliminate used game sales on the Xbox One. They'll force Kinect to be on every machine. They'll charge $100 more than the competition (in part to cover the cost of Kinect) and they will maintain their dominance in the home space.
Except they got so much blowback that they basically had to backtrack all of that.
Meanwhile their PC dominance is slipping.
Windows 7 was the most popular OS they've ever done.
But the iPad came along. And a lot of people who were buying PC's figured out they can get by with iPads. Or maybe just their iPhones. And hell maybe just their Android phones. Professionals and gamers and workers still need Windows, sure, but a lot of people (think: your parents) can get by on their iPads.
Part of the reason PCs dominated in the gaming space was due to DirectX being so prevalent and so a lot of games were written for DirectX and couldn't come to Mac or Linux if they wanted to. And Xbox 360 fit right into Microsoft's development workflow.
Except the 360 didn't have NES-style 90% dominance. It was neck and neck with the PS3 for many years. If you need your game to also run on the PS3 then you made it in such a way that you didn't depend on DirectX.
Also, OpenGL was supported on the mobile platforms, namely the iPhone, so if your game had an OGL renderer you could conceivably run on iOS and Android devices. And this is what we've seen happen - this is why Unreal can run on iOS devices, for example. For the longest time id Software was the only developer using a ton of OGL, now OGL basically "won" the race.
So suddenly games weren't only on Windows, now they were on Linux and OS X as well. And also Steam is on Linux and OS X as well.
And a lot of people who liked to use their iPhones decided to give Macs a shot and now Mac sales are at an all time high.
So Microsoft decided to make Windows 8 run on tablets as well. I mean, Windows has always run on tablets, sort of, but like with the Xbox One they got brazen. They gave Windows 8 a tablet-first interface. Get rid of the start menu. Boot to the tablet screen. Put out a version of Windows that can't even run non-Metro apps (RT). Maybe if you force people to use it then developers will follow suit.
Everyone hated it. They had to halfass revive the start menu.
So now they're losing their PC dominance and their console dominance.
And they fired their CEO.
So now they have a new guy in who wants to unfuck everything. And shit's changing.
.NET is open source now.
Flight Simulator is on Steam now.
A version of Visual Studio runs on Mac and Linux now. Also there's a free version of the full thing that doesn't suck now.
And they're going to unify their devices.
So yeah the next logical step is to make Xbox games run on the PC.
Maybe even do like Portal 2 and have it to where if you buy it on one you can play it on the other. And your shit syncs over the cloud. Think like what Hearthstone does.-
At one point it was known/rumored that Microsoft lost money on everything except for Windows and Office and they made so much money on those it didn't matter.
This must've been a long long time ago since there've been multiple billion dollar business units in MS outside Windows and Office for quite awhile now
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Windows 10 is all about unifying everything ! Maybe they think it wouldn't hurt the Xbox too much.
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They're gonna turn all PC's into Xbox One systems and increase the install base five fold!
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Seems like a way of boosting the Windows Store and maybe driving people towards Windows 10 if they did go that route. They're pretty much offering Windows 10 up for free in order to create a unified platform and get people to use their store.
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Which you could have overridden easily with a stroke of a few keys to install on XP
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As much as I'd like this to be true, I have a hard time believing it. Of course, if it does happen that'd be fantastic.
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RDR is Rockstar so that's completely out of Microsoft's hands.
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I guess we'll find out at E3 is this is true or not. I would be kind of shocked if it was true. Shocked because MS isn't smart enough to actually do this.
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I hope so. I haven't bothered to retrain myself to aim gun with a controller since halo 3.
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I really doubt this is true but one can dream.
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The game is designed to be played with a controller.
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I agree, except, weirdly, FarCry 3 feels better with a controller
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The mouse support in that game is pretty broken so that makes sense. Even I had to play that game with a controller until we found a way to fix it. There's a limiter in the packed files for both FC3 and Blood Dragon where if your input speed is faster than x, the inputs drop out and the game doesn't recognize them. It's impossible to play consistently using the mouse like that, especially with a lower sensitivity.
So frustrating!
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Hell yeah they did.
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Do I get credit for being a rumor?
https://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=33273472#item_33273472 -
Closest I bet we see is that Halo Online leak (or the actual Halo Online if you are in Russia)
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Killer Instinct and Forza please
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Well, fuck. If you do this, MS, you will be getting a shit-ton of money from me. Especially if it's on Steam.
Also, don't worry about your XBOX Ones. Harmonix has you covered. -
I still feel that they shot themselves in the foot ever since over promoting their console and neglecting the PC platform. It would be nice to see some of those IPs on PC.
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