Game Stooge

Halo Can Haz Own Convenshun?

• Scribbled on July 27th, 2008 by Jonathon Howard
• Filed in E3, Editorial Content, Industry News, Interviews

There’s been lots of memorable quotes from the head of Halo over at Microsoft Game Studios, Frank O’Connor, who apparently spent his time at San Diego Comic Con bragging about how great Halo is. The two biggest were his idea that Halo was “bigger than Jesus”. Well, actually, this what he said: “[Halo is] big enough at this point that it can stand on its own… You can do a HaloCon. Nothing on [the scale of Comic Con], but you could bring a few hundred people just to see a Halo thing. We’re really not worried about Halo’s ability to stand out and shine in the future. There’s plenty of stuff coming.”

The other big thing was the Bungie E3 brouhaha. O’Connor was quick to try and put out this little fire, “It’s E3, it’s complicated. You saw the Microsoft press conference - there was a ton of stuff. And someone, somewhere decided strategically that another time is better, and it will be, and there’s going to be an announcement and it’s going to be awesome… Halo gets plenty of attention, and Halo will get plenty of attention if there’s any new stuff to announce.”

Here are some final comments by the man on this year’s E3: “E3 is what it is now, but I still think there’s space for a really big consumer videogames show. If you look around Comic Con, people are doing business here, people are unveiling things, they’re revealing stuff. But the people who are enjoying it are the people we’re making the games for, and it’s a really unique experience and one the industry could get tremendous value from At E3, the fans are there, they’re just using the Internet. Why not charge them an entrance fee and make the thing a profit centre rather than a loss leader?”

Don’t you love hearing about these companies complaining about how E3 just isn’t the same, as if they have no say in the matter at all?! They pay the dues and sit on the board of the ESA. If they want a different E3, than make one! Maybe they prefer to just bitch and moan?

(Thanks, Eurogamer.)