NEWS - Friday, August 12, 2005
Bungie Nearly Doubles Halo Development Team
This increase in manpower is mainly thought to be a necessary measure to increase the quality in Halo 3’s production values. "Making a game is getting to be more and more like making a movie," explained Microsoft’s J Allard. "You need to hire more artists, more animators and more musicians." The expansion will also help ensure Halo 3 makes a viable deadline. Halo 2 took two years to develop and, with Xbox 2 looking toward a late 2005 release window, Bungie will have its work cut out to ensure a desirable release date for Halo 3. The original Halo was instrumental in setting Xbox’s pace from launch and Microsoft will want Halo 3 to be available as near to launch as possible. That said, strong rumors currently gaining momentum suggest that instead of actually working to have Halo 3 released for the Xbox 2 launch, Microsoft intends for the game to be developed with the PlayStation 3’s release in mind. While this gives Bungie extra development time, it’s also a clever (not to mention admirably devious) way of swaying potential buyers to buy an Xbox 2 instead of going through with a PlayStation 3 purchase. Considering the hype and retail power of Halo 2, which broke records by selling 2.4 million copies in its first day on sale in the US, it’s not unrealistic to imagine that a similar force could seriously damage Sony’s launch plans.Source: http://www.gameshout.com/
