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[IMG News]

Microsoft recently announced that Halo 2 will be coming to PC as a Windows Vista only title. Halo 2 is the sequel to the popular first person shooter epic and continues the story of Master Chief's struggle against Earth's enemies. A Microsoft Game Studios team, in partnership with Bungie, will port the game to Vista, Microsoft's upcoming new operating system due later this year. The title will include both Halo 2 and the multiplayer map pack.

In "Halo 2" for Windows Vista, the action picks up where the first game ended. Master Chief, with the help of a small group of marines, has destroyed the religious artifact and artificial world known as "Halo," and is making his way back to Earth. There, he and the last surviving Earth forces will mount a titanic struggle against the marauding Covenant enemy.

Whether or not Halo 2's status as a Windows Vista game will prevent the possibility of an eventual Mac version remains to be seen. Keep an eye on IMG for more information.


Update: Bungie.net has posted an article about the upcoming Vista version of Halo 2. Towards the end of the article, a mention about a Mac version is made:

There's loads of questions the Bungie faithful will ask, like, "Will there be a Mac version?" We can't answer that yet. It's not out of the question, but it's not definitely happening either. We promise to keep you posted.

So while this not good news for Mac gamers, it at least shows that Bungie is aware of Mac gamers and their desire to play Halo 2 on a Mac. We'll be sure to keep you posted.

Return to Full Article - InsideMacGames News

[Eric5h5]

Should have quoted Bungie, where they answer the question of a Mac version by saying that it's not ruled out, but not definitely confirmed either.  I don't think Vista has much to do with anything from a porting perspective. From what I've heard, though, I'm not sure I want Halo 2 unless it's guaranteed that we get Halo 3 as well.

--Eric

[mtrank]

Eric5h5, on February 10th 2006, 11:40 AM, said:

From what I've heard, though, I'm not sure I want Halo 2 unless it's guaranteed that we get Halo 3 as well.

Why is that, Eric?

[Joshua]

Some people would suggest that this exemplifies the precarious position the mac gaming industry is in with Intel Macs. Windows Vista supposedly can be easily installed on Intel Macs; Microsoft doesn't bother with the extra money/effort to get the game ported to OS X, especially knowing people who "really" want the game can dual-boot in the EFI-friendly WinVista.

I have no strong feelings on this matter, and I'm not looking to start trouble, but this scenario is exactly what some people are worrying about, in theatres for your viewing (dis)pleasure, late 2006.

Josh

[Marble]

Joshua, on February 10th 2006, 08:54 AM, said:

Some people would suggest that this exemplifies the precarious position the mac gaming industry is in with Intel Macs. Windows Vista supposedly can be easily installed on Intel Macs; Microsoft doesn't bother with the extra money/effort to get the game ported to OS X, especially knowing people who "really" want the game can dual-boot in the EFI-friendly WinVista.

I have no strong feelings on this matter, and I'm not looking to start trouble, but this scenario is exactly what some people are worrying about, in theatres for your viewing (dis)pleasure, late 2006.

Josh

I don't know about that.  I doubt the Macintosh has anything to do with the exclusivity of this deal.  Microsoft just wants a few gems to make upgrading to Vista more appealing.

[Batcat]

mtrank, on February 10th 2006, 10:49 AM, said:

Why is that, Eric?

Halo 2 has a bit of a cliffhanger ending. I still find it overall quite satisfying, tho.

News broke preliminarily about this, and there's already quite a discussion on in Shooters, too.

Joshua, on February 10th 2006, 10:54 AM, said:

Some people would suggest that this exemplifies the precarious position the mac gaming industry is in with Intel Macs. Windows Vista supposedly can be easily installed on Intel Macs; Microsoft doesn't bother with the extra money/effort to get the game ported to OS X, especially knowing people who "really" want the game can dual-boot in the EFI-friendly WinVista.

I have no strong feelings on this matter, and I'm not looking to start trouble, but this scenario is exactly what some people are worrying about, in theatres for your viewing (dis)pleasure, late 2006.

Josh

It's not MS' job to 'bother with the extra money/effort to get the game ported to OS X.' That's what MacSoft, Aspyr etc. are here for. It's MS' job to ship their product, not someone else's.

Vista has been in beta for awhile, and I've not heard of it booting on a production MacTel yet. XP was supposed to be easy, too, and many got their hopes up, only to have them dashed.

Marble, on February 10th 2006, 11:01 AM, said:

I don't know about that.  I doubt the Macintosh has anything to do with the exclusivity of this deal.  Microsoft just wants a few gems to make upgrading to Vista more appealing.

I expect so, too. Many are reasonably satisfied with XP and express little desire to upgrade. Halo 2 is a big lever for some, wasted if not used.

[Eric5h5]

mtrank, on February 10th 2006, 11:49 AM, said:

Why is that, Eric?

I heard a lot of complaints about Halo 2 ending abruptly or incompletely or something....

Quote

Windows Vista supposedly can be easily installed on Intel Macs; Microsoft doesn't bother with the extra money/effort to get the game ported to OS X, especially knowing people who "really" want the game can dual-boot in the EFI-friendly WinVista.

There's more to it than EFI.  XP was going to be hacked to run in "two weeks", yet there's now a pot of over $10,000 to someone who can manage it, and nobody has.  (Leading to silly conspiracy theories about people just holding off to see how high the amount gets, when Occam's Razor tells you that it's just really hard or possibly downright impossible without significant re-engineering.)

--Eric

[Fat Bastard Canada]

Eric5h5, on February 10th 2006, 09:08 AM, said:

I heard a lot of complaints about Halo 2 ending abruptly or incompletely or something....

--Eric

...but if it's only half as fun as the original title, it'll still be worth playing.




I'm not being paid to say this.

[nagromme]

I NEVER thought Microsoft would EVER bother to bring Halo 2 to Mac. The pre-existing "commitment" to Halo 1 was met, but that's the end of it I assumed. It's interesting to hear that Bungie isn't quite so down on the prospect!

And I wouldn't take anything to do with Halo 2 is a bad sign for Mac gaming: it's a game FROM Microsoft, which most games are not.

[gromit]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the H word yet.  If Halo 2 on Windows Vista ends up using Gamespy, as did Halo, then that plus Havok would be two strikes against a Mac port ever happening.

I, for one, won't hold my breath.

[PMAvers162]

gromit, on February 10th 2006, 06:46 PM, said:

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the H word yet.  If Halo 2 on Windows Vista ends up using Gamespy, as did Halo, then that plus Havok would be two strikes against a Mac port ever happening.

I, for one, won't hold my breath.

Dangnabbit, beat me to the punch.

At least if Microsoft was funding the port, they could actually *afford* to pay the licenses to make it happen...

[iRolley]

nagromme, on February 10th 2006, 12:17 PM, said:

I NEVER thought Microsoft would EVER bother to bring Halo 2 to Mac. The pre-existing "commitment" to Halo 1 was met, but that's the end of it I assumed. It's interesting to hear that Bungie isn't quite so down on the prospect!

And I wouldn't take anything to do with Halo 2 is a bad sign for Mac gaming: it's a game FROM Microsoft, which most games are not.

Well actually, Westlake Int. ported Halo if I recall. Microsoft had nothing to do with it. Maybe was Bungie more inclined to make concession so that the port would happen, but it ends there. If a Mac publishers believes it can port Halo 2, we will get Halo 2. That's it. NOTHING to do with Microsoft's mac dedication.

Then on the subejct of dual booting with VISTA on a mac, it won't happen. Or at least not enough people will do it to really hurts sales. The only reasons I would is to play a Game like Half Life 2, and then i'd need to be on drugs, have VISTA in one hand, HL2 in the other and a gun behind my head.   .

Tell me if I'm wrong but I firmly believe most of us like to game on our Macs, not on a windows box, otherwise we would already have one.

[teflon]

theres still some big hitters left at the top of Bungie who were around in the olden days, and who were there brokering the deal about Halo coming to mac, so I wouldnt be too suprised if they could do a little persuading. And if they can persuade MS to put pressure on Gamespy and Havok, then tectonic plates will move...

MS have to realise that they wouldnt lose any real money from the PC version of the game if they allow a mac port. The mac market is pretty small compared to the PC one, and the PC legendarily has better frame rates etc. so much so that some people will ignore a mac version to play the PC version... not to mention that the PC version often comes out first...

I guess well just have to wait and see what kind of negotiations Macsoft are in with MS, and if they can pull it off (of course thats the only way wed actually hear about it, but still).

[gromit]

teflon, on February 10th 2006, 02:38 PM, said:

theres still some big hitters left at the top of Bungie who were around in the olden days, and who were there brokering the deal about Halo coming to mac, so I wouldnt be too suprised if they could do a little persuading. And if they can persuade MS to put pressure on Gamespy and Havok, then tectonic plates will move...

MS have to realise that they wouldnt lose any real money from the PC version of the game if they allow a mac port. The mac market is pretty small compared to the PC one, and the PC legendarily has better frame rates etc. so much so that some people will ignore a mac version to play the PC version... not to mention that the PC version often comes out first...

I guess well just have to wait and see what kind of negotiations Macsoft are in with MS, and if they can pull it off (of course thats the only way wed actually hear about it, but still).

I don't have any personal knowledge of the internal dynamics of the Microsoft Games division, but I would be very surprised if anyone from Bungie has that kind of pull.  They are smart guys, and they are valuable assets to Microsoft, but not so valuable that Microsoft is going to take a financial hit just to satisfy their whims.

And, frankly, I'd be surprised if anyone at Bungie even really cares.  If they thought that what was good for Bungie's bottom line meant abandoning the Mac, why would they choose to sacrifice Microsoft's bottom line, instead?  I'm sure stock options were part of the buyout deal.  What's good for Microsoft is good for Bungie, and the issue probably ends there.  If anyone is the least bit inclined to have this port done at all, it's going to come down to the numbers, period.

[paulc]

I dare say that the ability to boot into some version of 'blowz on an IntelMac better happen; I know a number of pc weenies who have got X running on IntelWin boxes. They all seem very impressed at how fast it is (although, it's certainly true they all have pretty beefy machines, this ain't a load of 700 buck D'hells).

I still think I have the right strategy... 3-4 months ago I decided I was going to get one more PPC machine, then do my customary 3-4 years until the next machine. Jumped on the $2150 dual 2.7 refurb, so I'm looking Intel something during 2008 (or early 2009)... it very well could be that I'd be able to get better (or cheaper) Intel hardware not from apple, still run X and have 'blowz for gaming.

[PeopleLikeFrank]

nagromme, on February 10th 2006, 12:17 PM, said:

I NEVER thought Microsoft would EVER bother to bring Halo 2 to Mac. The pre-existing "commitment" to Halo 1 was met, but that's the end of it I assumed. It's interesting to hear that Bungie isn't quite so down on the prospect!

Microsoft will license it to a Mac porting company if it's in their financial interest to do so. The middleware issues are still there, but ultimately, if it's feasible for a Mac company to negotiate a licensing deal, then there's no reason for Microsoft to hold out, if there's a buck to be made.

The Vista exclusive thing, as has been pointed out, is more to get users of older versions of Windows to upgrade. Last I heard, a good fifty percent of Windows installs were still running 2000, almost five years after the release of XP. That's a burden for Microsoft in terms of legacy support, and represents far more customers than the entire Apple customer base. They have far more interest in drawing their own users to purchase an upgrade than trying to woo people over from Apple.

[MightySlugMan]

if we assume that Halo 2 will be ported, I'd assume it'd only be worthwhile to play as an Intel-Mac only port.  So i'm sure MS would try to do anything that would help Apple's move to Intel.  then again, maybe not since MS and Apple have an interesting relationship.

[Tesseract]

It pays Microsoft to throw Apple some bones now and then; it helps stave off the "monopolist" label and those expensive antitrust lawsuits.

[Eric5h5]

MightySlugMan, on February 10th 2006, 04:55 PM, said:

if we assume that Halo 2 will be ported, I'd assume it'd only be worthwhile to play as an Intel-Mac only port.

Not at all; it would play fine on PPC even if they updated it.  Halo is more dependent on graphics card power than CPU power.  The only reason not to do a PPC version is if whoever ports it doesn't want to bother taking the time.  But if it happens, it will be sufficiently soon that not doing a PPC version would lose quite a few sales.

--Eric

[booga]

Why any Mac user would consider ever buying anything from Bungie again is beyond me.  There are a lot of fun games out there.  Don't buy from the sellouts.