[360] Halo: Reach

[icycalm]

http://www.bungie.net/Projects/Reach/

Buy Halo 3: ODST and receive an invitation to participate in the Halo: Reach Xbox LIVE multiplayer beta. If you want in, hold onto your copy of Halo 3: ODST and stay tuned to Bungie.net and Xbox.com for more details.

http://www.bungie.net/projects/odst/features.aspx#beta

Nice little scam they got going there. Signing up people for betas of future games announced right at the time of release of the current game, by requiring them to... buy the current game. "Hay guyz, I just released a game -- if you buy it I will sign you up for the beta of my next game, coming whenever I decide to make it. What's that nebulous upcoming game called? Uhhhh... ICYCALM'S NEXT GAME: REACH."

Halo: Reach will be Bungie's final Halo game, with the company moving on to new projects following completion of the title next year.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/100/1007095p1.html

I am pretty sure I read the same line sometime after Halo 3's release -- and, oh look: two more games!

[icycalm]

It just occurred to me that the scheme is even more devious than that: when they say "hold onto [sic] your copy" what they are basically doing is preventing people from selling their copies UNTIL PRETTY MUCH THE RELEASE OF THE NEXT GAME. And all for what? So you can test their game for bugs for them -- without being paid for it. Next thing you'll know they'll be asking for blowjobs -- and getting them.

[El Chaos]

Microsoft did the exact same thing with Crackdown and Halo 3's multiplayer beta, although it seems they did it to increase people's low level of interest in the former.

Either they liked the results of their first jab at this scheme and look forward to repeating it, or they think the Halo franchise could perhaps be running out of steam (the latter is a wild guess on my part; Americans could still be consuming it in droves for all I know).

[CMiller]

People from Bungie have complained a lot about used game sales and how they hurt their bottom line, so it really shouldn't come as a surprise that they are trying things like this to cut down on them.

Also, Crackdown had a beta code, which when entered on Xbox Live would let you download the Halo 3 beta. You could chuck the game and keep the code. As far as I know, the physical ODST disc is required to access the Reach beta.

[El Chaos]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/halo- ... e-tv/59813

Not much that we didn't already know.

[icycalm]

Halo developer Bungie Studios has said that calling Halo: Reach the last Halo game Bungie will make is "premature".

http://edge-online.com/news/bungie-does ... halo-games

lol did I call it or what

[icycalm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0_jiB2hqeQ

Looks good. I even warmed up to the devs -- they do not at all sound like douches, like most devs.

Still, all their talk about the gfx doesn't amount to much -- their engine has nothing on stuff like Crysis. Of course they are only working with a 360, but in that case they should tone down their rhetoric a bit.

I like the "sandbox" talk. They don't really elaborate on it, but here's hoping for as much freedom of action as possible.