The year is 2007. You turn on your TV (or, since you're a nerd, open a site called "YouTube") and come across a video titled something like: "Halo 3 coming to PS3, Xbox 360 and PC". The internet would probably explode, because like it or not, Halo is a huge franchise (at least in the beloved United States).
Halo was so big at one point that it would show up "accidentally," like in the series "Two and a Half Men". Check out this Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/1ehbh61/i_will_never_forget_halos_appearance_in_two_and_a/
There's also this little (possibly misleading) bit of promotion in "Mission: Impossible 5":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg_PXNZrBdsIf Halo 5 ever comes to PC, let it support triple-screen setups (even if nobody really needs that).
With that said, it's worth stepping outside your bubble and understanding that Halo is not some small, irrelevant game. It didn't reach that level in Brazil mainly because the original Xbox wasn't as strong as the PlayStation 2 (mostly due to pricing---even though both could be modded and run pirated games), despite the Xbox being technically superior.
It's well known that Xbox only gained real popularity with the 360, largely thanks to piracy (third-world country realities).
Back to the point: Halo launching on PC isn't surprising---today you can officially play almost all Halo games (for some reason Halo 5 was left out, even though it's a solid game) via the Master Chief Collection, and Halo Infinite launched during Xbox's Play Anywhere era.
But PlayStation? Is this a white flag? Is Xbox becoming Sega? Is Xbox failing?
It's important to remember: Microsoft wants money. Even with millions coming from Office subscriptions and Windows licenses, the Xbox division isn't generating the profits they want. It's not losing money---but it's not enough.
Bringing games to other platforms is a smart way to boost profits. Forza Horizon 5 is one of the best-selling games on PlayStation, Gears of War Reloaded had decent numbers on Steam and PlayStation (it could have sold more if it were a full collection like Halo, right?). So Halo going to the "enemy" platform isn't shocking.
The "new" Halo on Unreal
Gears of War has always used Unreal Engine---and brilliantly. In simple terms, it's the game that pushed Xbox hardware from 128MB to 256MB of RAM (if I'm not mistaken).
Finally, 343 decided to abandon their proprietary engine (after learning from the delays of Halo Infinite) and switched to Unreal Engine 5---the same engine people love to criticize.
The game doesn't look bad. The textures (and even the gameplay) feel similar to Halo Infinite.
But just by watching gameplay, you can notice blur here and there, familiar movement quirks, and performance hiccups---even on high-end PCs.
I've played several Unreal Engine 5 games, and honestly, it feels like only Epic really knows how to use it well... though they made Fortnite with it. Games often feel heavier than they should---but that may be due to developers and deadlines rather than the engine itself.
And time is something 343 has plenty of---they have until December 31, 2026 to release it. Yes, another Xbox game without a release date.
So... what now, Xbox?
Off the top of my head, the last real success from Xbox was Minecraft Dungeons. I remember playing it for almost 24 hours straight---it's fun and a great introduction to the genre.
Since then, honestly, I mostly remember Xbox's mistakes.
The Xbox division should stop focusing on consoles and move toward services. Imagine an Xbox OS---a cheaper, optimized Windows built for gaming. Drop the "pay to play online" model entirely and turn Game Pass purely into a game subscription service.
You'd pay to play in the cloud or on PC, with better-priced tiers. Backward compatibility on PC would also be interesting.
But maybe that's dreaming too much...
As a gamer, I just hope we get great games and healthy competition---because right now, Nintendo and PlayStation seem pretty comfortable squeezing their audiences.
Epilogue
Unlike Xbox, I actually clean up my software mess.
I fixed the blog---it had SEO issues. I resisted changing the framework, but ended up doing it. Now it runs React with Next, and everything seems fine.
Maintenance? Maybe in six months... if that.
Thanks for reading!