For the first time since Halo as a franchise has existed, the game will be available on Playstation. While Halo has been on platforms other than Xbox—notably Steam—it’s never been put on what many consider to be the main rival of the Xbox brand, Playstation.
Having “Halo” move over to Playstation is a bad decision as it removes some of the exclusivity of the series and for the console. One of the big draws of the Xbox was the “Halo” series, getting to see what happened next, the multiplayer features. Having it move to Playstation, albeit without multiplayer, is the start of a landslide that will make Xbox obsolete. Why use Xbox when you could just use Steam or Playstation?
The game that is being put on the Playstation is “Halo: Campaign Evolved,” a remake of the first Halo game, “Halo: Combat Evolved,” which was the flagship game of the first Xbox console. Since then, it's been considered somewhat sacred to Xbox players in the same way “God of War” is for Playstation.
The reason Halo going to Playstation is a big deal is the fact that it’s basically Xbox fully surrendering in what’s long been called “the console wars.” The console wars were, or are, depending on how you look at it, a war between Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft for the game console market. Each brand has their devotees.
Nintendo had some of the first game consoles on the market after Atari went the way of the dinosaur, with Sony’s Playstation making an appearance a while after, and finally Microsoft making Xbox to compete.
All three studios have had flagship games and characters: Playstation has Kratos from “God of War,” Nintendo has Mario from “Super Mario Brothers,” and Xbox had Master Chief from “Halo”— he’s even on the internals and hardware of the newest Xbox models.
Xbox has been putting their games on more platforms while attempting to enter the handheld console market—something they have never done before. Placing “Halo” on Playstation shows how little faith they have in it making sales on Xbox. This, along with increasing the price of Gamepass Ultimate, a games and online play subscription, is an indicator that things may not be going according to plan for Microsoft.
The newest generation of the Xbox console, the S and X consoles, were intended to be major money-makers for a decade, starting in 2020. In retrospect, this was a pretty bad idea. So was putting “Halo” on Playstation.
Giving the signature, flagship game to another console is a very big betrayal to some fans. It’s even prompted the White House, the actual government, to post some ludicrous memes. For example, the official White House X account posted “power to the players” with an AI-generated image of our president. President Trump is seen standing on the White House lawn wearing Master Chief's iconic armor, holding an energy sword from the games, and saluting in front of an American flag.
The response to this was about 1% supportive, 29% entirely dislike, and 70% crypto bots and scams. Along with this, Homeland Security posted: "finishing the fight,” paraphrasing the “Halo” games above an image that said “fight the flood” accompanied with “JOIN.ICE.GOV.”
The flood, in “Halo” lore, is an infection of what can be considered pure evil, with only the goal to cause suffering and infect anybody and anything. It is a pure brainless biomass, and that is being compared by DHS to illegal immigrants. This did not get a positive reaction from anyone but deep MAGA and crypto bots. Fans felt it made no sense, neutrals thought it was a bad comparison, and the left did what it always does and insulted everyone involved.
The main point in all this is the fact that “Halo” moving to Playstation marks the following: the end of Xbox’s involvement in the mascot and console wars, “Halo” gaining a resurgence in popularity (along with red vs. blue, a “Halo”-inspired series), the government once again being somewhat out of touch (Trump with an alien sword, really guys?), and “Halo” fans feeling betrayed by Xbox.
“Halo” was one of the last things Xbox had over Playstation, and all of this game moving is only going one way. Playstation isn’t licensing “God of War” for Xbox and neither are the popular Spiderman games, or any playstation titles whatsoever. It may be the “end of the console wars,” but it’s really just the beginning of the end for XBox.
Charles Marcus is a gamer, writer, and high school student.
