Microsoft Burns Windows XP Users with Halo 2

MS Marketing ploy?

http://www.gamershell.com/companies/microsoft_software/274614.html
from JoeUser Forums
I ususally don't badmouth MS all that often. After all, I believe they make some of the best software that I use all the time.

However, it turns out that MS is releasing Halo2, and guess what? It wont be supported under Windows XP, but only under Windows Vista.

I think this is something of a raw deal, seeing as though many many PC users of halo have been waiting for the release of Halo 2 since it was released for XBOX.

Why wouls MS do this to us faithful Halo gamers who have been squaking about a Halo 2 release for Windows? Is this some fu*ked up marketing ploy, or is there some legitimate reason?


"Only for Windows Vista, "Halo 2" will offer gamers both the single-player campaign and multiplayer experience of the original, as well as the additional maps offered in the "Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack." Gamers will also have the exciting opportunity to build, create and customise their own multiplayer levels."
gaming
36,862 views 26 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Why?  To push sales of Vista of course!  The game will already be near 3 years old when it's finally released for the PC, so unless they did some phenominal work on revamping the graphics engine, it's going to look like crap by comparison.  I don't think it's going to be much of a loss honestly.  And with Halo 3 probably 3+ years from getting released for the PC, I've more or less given up hope on that franchise.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I didn't think Halo was anywhere near as good as everyone said it was, and I don't think Halo 2 can be that much better, as it is nearly three years old as Zoomba pointed out (admittedly I speak without having played the game).
But I think it is a marketing ploy, I can't think of any hardware or software reasons.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Halo 1 was still the best one. Of course as a console game, it is the best type of FPS you can find for any console system. As a PC game, there's alot of other better FPS game out there.

Wilson, for not having played the game, you sure shouldn't say anything. Without having met you, I think you talk to much and really not a nice person.

(Just making a point of judging something without trying it)
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Buy an XBOX 360 and play any of the versions of Halo and stop worrying over it.

Microsoft is entitled to release their software for any O/S they want, and they've obviously decided that they'd prefer to put Halo 2 out for Vista. If they want to do that, more power to them.

Honestly Microsoft can't win with their O/S requirements anyway. They still have tons of users that are running Windows 95 and Windows 98 and are crying because they aren't getting updates for it to fix bugs, security holes, etc.

Do I like paying Microsoft every so many years to jump to the latest and greatest O/S platform? Hell no. Their prices are more than they should be, and the added features are generally not worth the cost. Besides that they don't offer a family friendly pricing scheme at all. Normally the cheapest way to get a new version of their O/S is to spend about twice as much as the O/S alone would cost and get yourself a whole new PC.

Why should I waste relatively good hardware though? Why can't I just keep using what I have? Well, the answer is that I can, but I'll be stuck with older hardware and older software, neither of which is likely to include all of the latest and greatest features. It's my choice though, and I can opt to live on the bleeding edge and pay the price, or lag behind and save some money while I wait for things to catch up and prices to come down.

For now I'm gonna lag behind on the PC a bit, but enjoy my games via an Xbox 360. The system wasn't that expensive (all things considered) and it plays the games I want to play and makes them look good on my HDTV TV when they are playing.

Let someone else pay to be Microsoft's next round of beta testers
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Without having met you, I think you talk to much and really not a nice person.


Achillus, you shouldn't judge someone based on a single comment left on the forums. Without having met you , I already think you are really not a nice person(read: arrogant prick).

As far as HALO goes, I was never really all that impressed with it. I haven't been a fan of FPS since the early days of Doom.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Halo sold a ton of Xboxes, Halo 2 sold even more to the people who got thier first taste of Halo on the PC. Releasing Halo 2 on VISTA only makes sense, this way Microsoft gets money out of the PC fans who would not by an Xbox (like myself). All things considered, I think I'll give Vista a year or two. XP works just fine for me.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hey John.. Wow.. that was taken out of context. Almost as bad as the reaction to the Pope's comment. (if you dont' know what i mean, you need to turn off that computer and watch the news, there's alot more than just playing video games.) If you read further and use some common sense, I was pointing out Wilson's error by judging a game he never played. So in turn, I turned it around on him and made a comment about him without knowing him.

I guess some people can only see what's in front of them at that moment and react without thinking. I am very deeply sorry my comment is beyond your comprehension.


As far as Vista.. Runs great on my system as far as RC1 is concerned. Like Ricktheski said, don't count on it being stable till about a year or two after release.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Achillus, try just not saying anything along those lines. I don't think you're a bad person for doing, but I don't think better of you either. There is no constructive use for it in a forum so why bother?

I played both Halo's and I really didn't understand why everyone was so psyched about it. At best it is a mediocre FPS. It just so happens that all the other FPSs on console suck more (IMHO). The best I can say is that it tops the list of games I don't want. I still don't think they are very good games, and I only finished them so that I could say 'Yes, I played them. I didn't like them' and actually mean it and not just be guessing.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Halo 1 was still the best one. Of course as a console game, it is the best type of FPS you can find for any console system. As a PC game, there's alot of other better FPS game out there.


I look at Halo as a staple multiplayer game for the PC. Its simple to play and runs well on older PCs. You can always do a couple slayer matches
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Lonewolf, your right.. I may have been a bit too sarcastic. Also, I agree somewhat that Halo compared to other FPS from the PC arena is pretty mediocre. Unreal 2005 is a lot better. But it is a great game for the reason that you just plug in and not worry about the other guy having a better rig that you or if your system will even run the game at a playable rate.

I have both Halo games and I haven't even finish the story mode on HALO 2.

BUT ANYWAY.. Why are we even talking about Halo.. Isn't this a Galciv Forum?!
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I was never a big fan of the FPS, I do play them every so often though. When everyone was so big on Halo I played it, I beat it , and I played 16 player multiplayer a bunch, then I realized that I could get the same gameplay by playing just about any other FPS. In fact I think that doom I is a better game.

Fortunately whether or not Halo is a good game is not the topic of this thread, I'm sure that Microsoft could make halo 2 work on XP, but that wanted something that would help out with their Vista launch. Marketing tool? Probably. Smart? We'll see.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Halo released for XBox = More sales of XBox
Halo 2 released for Vista = More sales of Vista

It just doesn't add up.

-Nero
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Vista is the software support platform for Direct X 10. I'm not sure that Win XP can handle DX10, but I do know that it's being optimized for Vista.

If you want DX10, not only are you going to need Vista, but you're also going to need a DX10-compatible graphics card. And if you think there's a mystery behind the partnership bewteen Microsoft and ATI, you've got some education due to you.

If Halo2 is getting an overhaul with DX10, then there's another X-File solved, Scully.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I look at Halo as a staple multiplayer game for the PC. Its simple to play and runs well on older PCs. You can always do a couple slayer matches


I agree. Tried Doom 3 online and it was unplayable, as my wireless connection is....less than good (trying to rectify that) but Halo runs fine. Sure, you have team-killers here and there, but the community that frequents the Bungie servers are usually a pretty good lot. Can't say much about other online games until that connection is fixed though
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Performance-wise, I found Halo to be almost as laggy on my old machine with my old videocard as F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon was. I definitely wouldn't recommend it for 'older PCs'. My definition of an 'older PC' for the sake of argument, would be a PC that has trouble running or is unable to run a lot of newer games. IMO, if you can get good FPS on Halo on your old PC then it can run any game on the market though not necessarily well.

I found the optimization for the PC version of Halo to be pretty damn well criminally bad, they were pretty much trying to make the console look much much better in comparison. Halo 2 for Windows XP would've been unplayable on anybody's rig until the DX10 cards come out =anyway= .. now that they're making it for Vista, instead, they'll actually try to make it run well in order to make Vista look like a viable gaming platform and keep sales going strong. Then again, they might make us wait for the specialized DX10 cards to make it run well (or at all? I'm not sure, it may actually be a listed requirement).

Having played both Halo and Halo 2, I'd say Halo was the superior game in every respect. Halo 2 starts out with a bang, the missions on Earth are interesting and the story has great energy, but it seems to just putter around and awkwardly switch your perspective through most of the middle half. I didn't personally enjoy Halo 2 and I returned my copy a few days after buying it.

The original Halo really did push invent or at least popularize some great features and design, features like the regenerating shield-gauge and the critical choice of what weapons to carry forward with you became more common after Halo came out; this added to the expressiveness of its environments and creativity of the story would have it compare favorably to the original Half-Life.

With Halo 2, and Half-Life: Source, one of these genres pushed forward in its trademark area of expertise while the other floundered without really adding anything deserving of the sequel in what could've been an excellent, instant-classic series. I returned Halo 2 and got Vampires: Bloodlines-- which is a buggy and unfortunate title-- on store credit. Still don't regret it. I don't care if Halo 2 is supposed to have brilliant multiplayer, if I want to be teabagged and called a 'faglol' by a spastic 4th grader there's about a thousand other FPS games and even better they don't force me to wear a mic so I can hear that screechy little voice in my nightmares.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
Vampires: Bloodlines-- which is a buggy and unfortunate title


Ive played this one through. It wasn't that bad.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
VTM Bloodlines was a great game...good story, great soundtrack...it was just too short and a little linear.

There are some tweaks that will make it run better...look up HL2 .ini tweaks...they work the same for VTM since it's the same engine.

I didn't have much trouble with it, but then again I have a 7800gtx512....I never met a game I couldn't run.
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
If Halo2 is getting an overhaul with DX10, then there's another X-File solved, Scully.


Thanx...This may very well be the case.
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
There's absolutely no doubt that releasing Halo 2 exclusively for Windows Vista is marketing bullshit to push Vista sales. Neither Microsoft nor Bungie could give reasonable answers to respective questions addressing the technical benefits of Vista for PC Halo 2. The main reason (apart from a lot of crap talk) they give is DirectX 10. Oh cmon. What a nonsense. First, all major DirectX versions have been downported to at least one Windows release below the current one, and an "a-couple of years" old XBOX game ported to the PC will probably hardly make use of the advanced features of DirectX 10.

They're fucking us over. That's all. Get over it.
Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
The main reason (apart from a lot of crap talk) they give is DirectX 10


If I remember I was using DX v8 on my first install of XP. I dont really know much about the coding for DX. Is there some reason why it cant be ported for Win XP? If not, I figure sooner or later they will HAVE to port DX10 for Win XP.

Well I look at it this way. There are a lot of FPS games out there that are a lot better than Halo, and from what I have read here, Halo2 may not be as good as Halo1. I hope MS does not think that because I want to play Halo that Im going to purchase Vista to play that silly game. Personally, Im not all that Impressed with Vista at this point.


They're fucking us over. That's all. Get over it.


I hear you dude. But in the end, they are just f*cking themselves over. One way or another, they cant force me to by their software. So whos f*cking who?

Thanks for the comment.....xythe

Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Is there some reason why it cant be ported for Win XP?


Because then people wouldn't have to buy Vista just to keep playing the latest games.
Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top
Because then people wouldn't have to buy Vista just to keep playing the latest games.


People will spen $150 to plat a $20 game?
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
If pc people didn't rush out and buy consoles they wouldn't have so much power of what gets released. I haven't bought a console yet and don't plan to. If the game isn't out on PC then it's one I don't have to spend money on. End of story.

Of course they want to promote Vista, it's one of the ways they do things.

I plan to wait a good while so everyone else can work out the bugs in Vista. Xp works fine for me as well.

To each his own, but your money speaks more than your mouth to these guys.
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
Well they may want to push sales on windows but i'm not about to go spend 400.00 just to play halpo 2 pc. i dont talk bad about microsoft, i love there products i use them every day i just do not care for there prices. Halo 2 i owned it when i bought my 360. the only problem i am a moble person and i love using my laptop becuase i dont have time to sit in front of a tv screen and hook up my 360 and i will not buy vista for 400.00 i my self think microsoft needs to reconsidre thire pices. but heres the kicker wait about 2 years after vista is out and the price will drop. i garentee it but they will also go and make a new OS and turn around Relese Halo 3 and have the latest halo run on that and nothing else. im all for marketing but that is b/s. im sorry. if i have to i will complane to bill my self i will call up his rich self and complain. yea w/e

rock on halo
Reply #25 from JoeUser Forums Top
If pc people didn't rush out and buy consoles they wouldn't have so much power of what gets released. I haven't bought a console yet and don't plan to. If the game isn't out on PC then it's one I don't have to spend money on. End of story.


My sentiments exactally...never owned a console, never will.

Oh, I think I lied. Was Pong a console came? I had that one.