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First Person Shooters (Games) XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

Half-Life 2 Not On Xbox? 68

Posted by simoniker from the uh-oh-spaghettios dept.
Thanks to Evil Avatar for pointing to a Puget Sound Business Journal story suggesting that Half-Life 2 may not come out for Xbox after all. This relatively obscure article has word from David Hufford of Microsoft that "As of now, Half-Life 2 is not going to be on the Xbox.. Valve is sending us mixed messages on that." Up to now, established sites such as Planet Half-Life have said of the sequel: "An Xbox port is very likely", but it looks like that may no longer be true. Update: 06/09 21:34 GMT by S : GameSpyDaily have got hold of Valve's Doug Lombardi, who is saying that Half-Life 2 is still planned for both PC and Xbox - it may be that either contract negotiations or simply misinformation is clouding the issue.
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Half-Life 2 Not On Xbox? More

Half-Life 2 Not On Xbox?

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  • this, despite... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Recoil_42 ( 665710 ) on Sunday June 08, 2003 @07:22PM (#6146258) Homepage Journal
    ..gabe newell casually talking about it, and confirming it? the article is also very ps2 biased; so i wouldnt be surprised if the author is just talking out of his ass...

    • Re:this, despite... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by simoniker ( 40 ) * <<simoniker> <at> <slashdot.org>> on Sunday June 08, 2003 @07:40PM (#6146347) Homepage Journal
      It _is_ odd - I'd be inclined to dismiss the whole thing if it was just opinion - but the fact is, it appears to be a quote from a product manager at Microsoft saying that Half-Life 2 on Xbox isn't happening right now.

      So I guess they may still be negotiating, and the Microsoft guy has phrased in badly, but unless the quote is made up or otherwise mangled, it seems the deal is less done that everybody thought. We'll see.

  • not a bad thing? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Frizzled ( 123910 ) on Sunday June 08, 2003 @07:34PM (#6146316) Homepage
    after what happened to HALO all i can say is "Whew!"

    _f

  • Inaccurate, strange information. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@NOspaM.gmail.com> on Sunday June 08, 2003 @07:46PM (#6146374) Homepage
    First off, we have this:

    If Microsoft ever had an advantage over Sony due to the built-in hard drive, that advantage may soon disappear.

    The writer then goes on to describe the PSX, making that seem like it's going to contend directly with the Xbox because of it's built-in hard drive. Admittedly, he does mention that not every PS2 gamer will upgrade to the PSX but he doesn't make clear why it can never happen: Price. There's NO WAY Sony will release the PSX anywhere near the $200 and under price point of current consoles. The only people who are going to buy a PSX are those who a) want a TiVo-like device and/or b) don't already have a PS2. Even the hard drive add-on for the PS2 is never going to approach the 100% hard drive implementation of the Xbox because the majority of games aren't going to take real advantage of it before the PS2 fades in favor of the PS3.

    He then hits us with this:

    The old version of Xbox Live only allowed gamers to talk to one another in a central online portal area, but the new version enables them to communicate while actually playing games.

    He's getting this backwards. The new functionality to be added to Xbox Live is apparently going to include the ability to chat via voice OUTSIDE of games. The voice communication capability within games has been present in Xbox Live from day one.

    Finally, I would note that in regards to Half-Life 2, the author is quoting "a product manager in Microsoft's Xbox group," David Hufford. I don't know what Mr. Hufford's responsibilities are but if there was any firm announcement on there being no HL2 for the Xbox it seems logical that we would hear that either directly from Valve or from one of the "real" Xbox honchos like Jay Allard. Until we do, I wouldn't be surprised if the waffling is a result of financial wrangling between Valve and Microsoft - i.e., they may be looking for "Rockstar money" to get HL2 as an Xbox console exclusive.

    In short, I think the author is stringing a lot of disparate facts (and nonfacts) together in order to bolster the hypothesis that Xbox is failing (the Xbox wasn't supposed to make money on its and MS has made this clear over and over again), and I'll wait for official word from Valve, Microsoft or both before worrying about whether or not HL2 hits the Xbox.

  • ... as long as they're against MS.
  • I think this author might own some sony shares.
  • ...to what a P3 700 w/ a GeForce 3/4 hybrid can handle. I wonder if all these Xbox owners anxiously awaiting Half-Life 2 for their console actually _saw_ the E3 footage and realized that any release of this game for the Xbox would be _horribly_ neutered compared to the PC version. The Xbox is a child now compared to even middle-end PC's.

    • Re:There's a very real limit (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@NOspaM.gmail.com> on Sunday June 08, 2003 @08:37PM (#6146636) Homepage
      Yes, and if graphics were the only concern then your snide, dismissive attitude would be understandable. But the first Half-Life's graphics weren't that groundbreaking even at the time it was released. What set it apart from other FPSs at the same time is that it belonged to that select group (System Shock, Deus Ex, Thief) that placed a premium on good single-player gameplay. Since most of us expect Half-Life 2 to follow in that mold, whether or not the game matches texture for texture, effect for effect, the PC version is quite beside the point.

      I would further note that Doom 3's demoed graphics look even better than those of Half-Life 2 and yet Carmack is planning for what he believes will be a very good Xbox version.

      • Re:There's a very real limit (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Soulslayer ( 21435 ) on Sunday June 08, 2003 @09:10PM (#6146809) Homepage
        Of course while a lot of what makes HL2 so neat is not related to the graphics, it does still require significantly more horsepower for those other features. AI and advanced physics models do not necessarily come cheap in terms of processing.

        As to graphics, if you've seen HL2 and Doom 3 running at high resolution in person I think you'd realize that HL2s engine actually looks better than Doom 3's. At the very least it's equivalent. And Carmack has stated that there may eventually be a Doom 3 port, but he has not stated that "Doom 3 will look the same on an Xbox as it will on a PC". Concessions will have to be made. There's nothing terribly wrong with the Xbox, but it is essentially an old specialized PC running on 3 generations old graphics hardware.

      • First: I have to agree with you. Game play beats graphics any day and the original half-life had plenty of innovations (such as level design and story) that had nothing to do with PC horsepower.

        Second: have you seen the 25 minute E3 trailer for half-life 2 [www.frag.cl]? It looks incredible and it is painfully obvious that the game will likely be crippled by some really good PC hardware (2.5Ghz proc, 0.5G ram, second tier graphics card) much less X-Box hardware.

        Third: Do you really want to play the crippled version

        • "Crippled" is obviously a subjective evaluation. I've seen people argue that playing any game at a resolution of less than 1024x768 means that it's crippled which to me is a load unless you're talking about a strategy game.

          Believe me. I'm in no way asserting that the Xbox will be able to run Half-Life 2 at full speed, all "gussied up." I merely take issue with way people immediately dismiss it (and the other recent example, Doom 3) as impossible and essentially stating that any Xbox version will suck w

      • You know, gamers are such hypocrits.

        "Half Life 2 will suck at low detail settings, low resolution and on your crap hardware."

        "It's not about graphics, it's about gameplay."

        "Why are you raving on about Vice City so much? It's ooooold.... it's been out on PS2 since last year.. you could have been playing it already, bug free and with a nice controller"

        "Yeah... but I get to play it at 1900x1600 (insert other stupidly high resolution) and full detail. The graphics will look so much superior"

        This is
      • Yes, and if graphics were the only concern then your snide, dismissive attitude would be understandable. But the first Half-Life's graphics weren't that groundbreaking even at the time it was released.

        To clarify, the original Half-Life used a heavily-modified Quake 2 engine. No one ever expected it to be the best-looking game. Valve was a small studio; they certainly didn't have the capital to build an engine from scratch. However, Half-Life 2 utilizes the Source Engine, an in-house graphics engine devel
        • When it comes down to it though, I don't see why anyone would *choose* to play a FPS on a console instead of on their PC, given the unnatural control mechanisms offered by console controllers.

          The rest of your post makes sense, so why did you have to add this - forgive me - blindly stupid paragraph? The next time I aim a real weapon using a mouse and walk forward using the "W" key on my keyboard will be the first time. Whatever you may think of console controllers, they are no more "unnatural" than a mou

          • The rest of your post makes sense, so why did you have to add this - forgive me - blindly stupid paragraph? The next time I aim a real weapon using a mouse and walk forward using the "W" key on my keyboard will be the first time. Whatever you may think of console controllers, they are no more "unnatural" than a mouse/keyboard configuration.

            I agree that my last statement was a bit dismissive; there are certain times where a console FPS is more fun, such as playing co-op Halo with a friend.

            I suppose the "u
            • Good points. Certainly, I myself prefer FPS games with mouse/keyboard over a console controller. I admit that I have a tendency to play devil's advocate on this issue precisely because Halo was quite playable with a console controller once you got used to it (the fact that Halo bored me is another issue entirely).

              My immersion factor doesn't go up on the monitor because I sit about 2-1/2 feet from a 17" monitor. I also usually have lights on when I'm playing a PC game. The controls also tend to take me

    • HL2 could easily be made to play and look great on the Xbox. Have you seen footage of Halo 2? It's quite impressive, not quite HL2, but not far away. A lot of what makes HL2 look so good also has nothing to do with the graphics per say.

      Besides, HL2 will run at 640x480, possibly 800x600?, on the Xbox, so it doesn't need quite as much power.

      Doom 3 is coming to the Xbox, and I have heard nothing about it being "horribly neutered". However, as that will have a native Linux client, I will be purchasing t

      • Most gamers are still running sub-1Ghz machines with a Geforce 2 or 3. Furthermore, when the specs of every machine are the same, you can do a lot more tweaking to get it running well.

        Uh, I don't know who you consider "most gamers", but the majority of people who game seriously (where 'seriously' is not little kids games, and anything other than the Sims) likely have higher than 1Ghz machines, seeing as prices for 1.8Ghz and below processors and PC133 memory are so low nowadays, it's ridiculous. Pocket
    • The Xbox is a child now compared to even middle-end PC's.

      And most PC games are designed to use five year old PCs. What PC games actually use the pixel shaders in a gefore? Hmmm. Morrowind, for the water...any other mainstream games? Or just tech demos?

  • I think we all know that even if Half-Life is barely successfull at all, we'll see it ported to consoles. The big question is when? There is a good chance that it won't come out on consoles untill X-Box 2, PS3, and or the GC's successor (I can't find what I named it in a previous post).

    If it does end up on the current consoles, I doubt that it would end up on anything other than the X-Box due to pure processing/graphics power. It would take so much time to get it to run on the PS2/Cube (due to rewriting th

    • Re:Consoles Will Come (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Soulslayer ( 21435 ) on Sunday June 08, 2003 @09:01PM (#6146762) Homepage
      The PS2 has a fairly unique architecture, but he GameCube is a Power PC with an ATI Radeon 8500 (ish) graphics chipset. The Cube is not supposed to be a big pain to write for.

      However it is highly unlikely that HL2 could be ported to ANY of the consoles without major reduction in capabilities. Remember the Xbox is about equivalent to a 1GHz Celeron running a GeForce 3 Reference (pre-Ti) chipset. (its actual clock is 700Mhz but it gains some speed advantage due to some mainboard and memory enchancements)

      HL2's absolute minimum requirements (with nearly every detail setting lowered all the way) has been rumored to be in the 900Mhz GeForce 3 range. To play at anything remotely similar to the detail level of the E3 demonstration is going to require systems 2-3 times as powerful.

      It's time for a new generation of console players to learn what the last one did. Consoles will always fall behind top end PCs in terms of graphics performance. And given the delay between new console products you will generally have one year in which you can attempt to claim your console is more powerful than any PC when it comes to games (you'd be wrong, but you can get away with it) followed by 2-3 years of being obviously less advanced.

      Of course you won't be spending as much money on hardware as PC gamers so there are some benefits. ;)
      • with an ATI Radeon 8500 (ish) graphics chipset.

        No. It is a custom designed chipset by a company called ArtX. ATI bought them after the Gamecube chipset was pretty much locked down, and the R300 (Radeon 9500-9800) chip was the first PC video chip that the ArtX team had a chance to help out on.
        • Right the point is that the underlying architecture for both chipsets is actually fairly similar. I didn't say it was an R300 (actually I was eroneously comparing it to the R200 series), just that it is somewhat analogous to that series in terms of internal achritecture.

          The "Flipper" chipset developed by ArtX does a lot more than just graphics processing (sound, I/O, memory, etc) but the ArtX team supposedly carried a lot of their design over into the core of the later ATI chips.

          More to the point, the Fl
      • then there are those who play console and pc games and eat ramen all year long.

        when pc gaming isn't call rts's, fps and "Sim..." games then I'll stop buying my consoles
      • GamingNEXT - With the outstanding graphics that HL2 is using, what should gamers have, minimally, to run this game?

        Gabe Newell - An 800 MHz P-III and a DX6 level hardware accelerator (e.g. TNT).

        - GamingNEXT Interview, May 2003 [gamingnext.com]
        • Interesting. Last I heard hardware T&L was required. That would eliminate anything older than a GF2.

          I wonder how accurate Newell's stated minimum spec is. (he has been known to goof on technical aspects of their products in the past)
      • The PS2 has a fairly unique architecture, but he GameCube is a Power PC with an ATI Radeon 8500 (ish) graphics chipset. The Cube is not supposed to be a big pain to write for.

        PowerPC is sometimes a simple port, sometimes a complete rewrite. Remember, there was never a port of HL to the Mac, either (though they did have someone working on it for some time before they trashed it).

        However it is highly unlikely that HL2 could be ported to ANY of the consoles without major reduction in capabilities. Remembe
        • Your points are all certainly valid.

          My original post was certainly a bit snippy, but I'd like to stress that I'm most certainly not anti-console (I own several myself). I just tend to get exceedingly tired of people predicting the end of the PC as a gaming platform. It is also tiresome to have to listen to console gamers running around at every new product launch attempting to convince everyone that this console or that is more powerful than a high end PC.

          I wish people could just understand that all the
          • I just tend to get exceedingly tired of people predicting the end of the PC as a gaming platform. It is also tiresome to have to listen to console gamers running around at every new product launch attempting to convince everyone that this console or that is more powerful than a high end PC.

            I agree on both points. In the end, it's always possible to get a more powerful PC. There are configurations available that most people never see. At the least, even if a console comes out that gets a 6-month lead on co

  • Milking the cow? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ziggles ( 246540 ) *
    Maybe Valve realizes Microsoft will pay large sums of money to get a practically guarunteed hit game on the xbox.. so they're pretending to play hardball. They get a nice pile of cash for doing something they were probably going to do anyway.
  • The best thing about Half-life was all the extra mods and games.

    Valve knows this - that most of their sales were for Counterstrike and not Half-Life itself.

    Senseably, because the XBOX is a closed system, they are keeping it PC only.

    • That's not why it sold well initially. The reason it was immediately successful (and it was) was that it was an excellent single-player game. Over time it has had longevity beyond that of most single-player first-person shooters because of modifications, but it would have been successful even if there had never been a single mod.
      • That's not why it sold well initially. The reason it was immediately successful (and it was) was that it was an excellent single-player game.

        It also received a significant sales boost because Valve bought the team that created the most popular Quake mod, Team Fortress (which surpassed QuakeDM in players long before Half-life came around, and surpassed many (if not most) of Quake2's multiplayer mods), and they had announced that TF2 would be either a mod or an expansion for Half-life. In the long run it
  • Well MS could always just do what they did with Bungie buy the company and release only on their Xbox.

    • Re:flash the cash (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wormbin ( 537051 )

      Unlikely.

      Valve is a private company that was founded by a couple of ex-Microsofties who now have plenty of cash. Valve doesn't get bought by anyone unless the founders say so.

  • As far as I am aware, no half life release has been carried out in house at Valve. I suspect they will let other people handle the conversion. Jast as happened before. It was years before the dreamcast version (didn't) appear[ed].

  • David Hufford (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @08:52AM (#6149597) Homepage
    David Hufford, a product manager in Microsoft's Xbox group, said the Media Center PC remains the central digital entertainment hub of the home, at least to Microsoft's thinking. ... Hufford said it's easier for Microsoft to innovate its console with new add-ons like Music Mixer because the Xbox has a built-in hard drive that easily stores new digital entertainment applications.

    We have a product manager who actually believes in the "Media PC," who believes a karoke software product is an original add-on which will sell a videogame, and who refers to "innovating [the] console" by writing software.

    Obviously, Mr. Hufford could use a tighter grasp on reality. For example, here is an interview snippet [gamespy.com] ripped from Gamespy.

    David Hufford: My name is David Hufford and I work on the Marketing team at Xbox, so my primary job is to market all things Xbox, including this new game controller.

    GameSpy: What are you calling this new controller?

    David Hufford: We're calling it Xbox Controller S.

    GameSpy: What does the S stand for?

    David Hufford: Well, there's not a lot of science behind it, it's more of an art thing. I think we were all in a room and thought it would be a cool name, so we just came up with it.

    Sounds brilliant, doesn't he?

    Actually, that one is taken a bit out of context. He doesn't flub the rest of the interview, and he doesn't flub the other interviews available for googling (though he does use the phrases "super-hot" and "kicks butt" too often for someone in a professional communications position). So he does sound like he is qualified to talk about whether or not Half-Life 2 will make the console, although he's equally likely to be one of the people who described Microsoft BOB as a "totally awesome innovation, dude."

    After all of that tortureous and unnecessary deconstruction of the messenger, it isn't that surprising that Half-Life 2 wouldn't make the big X. The bare minimum specs have always hovered around the XBox level: 700 Mhz CPU with a good DX6 card. And, sadly, the minimum specs for computer games are generally set at what will actually physically play the game, albeit at 320x240 and 5 frames per second. If the XBox is at the minimum specs for the game, the XBox will be too slow to play it satisfactorily.
  • Its offical, http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/fullstory.asp?id= 5138 its on the xbox.

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