HalfLife2 on Xbox not Xbox360

[Epsilon-Zero]

From IGN

April 8, 2005 - Future Magazine's Official Xbox Magazine revealed the news we've all been waiting to hear. Mostly. Creative talent Valve is in development with IGN's 2004 game of the year, Half-Life 2, originally out for PC last fall, for the current generation Xbox. It's slated for release in summer 2005.

IGN phoned Vivendi Universal, which referred us to Valve, which did not return our phone calls. IGN wonders why a game of such import and visual excellence would appear on the current generation of systems, when Xbox 360 is right around the corner (fall 2005).

OXM has yet to update their Website with the news, though the magazine has only reached subscribers and has yet to reach newsstands proper.

Still, the news is frightfully good. Half-Life 2 is officially coming to Xbox, and console gamers without the means to afford a PC high-end enough to play the PC game will now have the chance.

We'll have more on Half-life 2 soon.

so halflife2 on a console sooner than we thought. Im surprised at this news that its not on xbox360 exclusively but i guess if it can be done on the xbox it would be no trouble to make a xbox360 version to launch at the same time.

no news though about halflife2 comming to the PS3.

[PS Gamer]

I have heard some details of the Half-Life2 game for PS2, though I don't think it will fall through. For 1 Sony doesn't concentrate on FPS's there more of an RPG console...though they have a lot of other great games. I don't remember but I think it was on GameInformer that said there could possibly be a HL2 game for the PS2...can't remember any of the details.

[bustabusta196]

Could you imagine what it would look like if it was on the PS2???

[Epsilon-Zero]

if for Doom3, id Software's CEO Todd Hollenshead says that "Xbox was the only viable choice" for technical reasons then i dont see how Halflife2 would be any different.
Halflife2 is a larger game than Doom3 on the pc even. Both games have GPU optomizations that the PS2 doesnt fall under having either. The PS2 just doesnt have the architecture to beable to port these games over without a major overhaul of the game that wouldnt give the same experience as the original

[MiThRaZoR]

Valve should wait to put HL2 on PS3. Because then they could probably put better graphics for it and make it look nicer. Although it looks as nice it can already.

[PS Gamer]

Well, the only reason I can think of HL2 not going on the PS2 is because of the maps, the graphics are in no way as good as Doom's...HL2's graphics are half decent and could easily be put onto the PS2.

[mckmas8808]

Ok lets be honest here PS Gamer. I respect you and what you say normally but the PS2 can not easily support HL2 without changing orignal look. The PS2 can't even display Splinter Cell 3 as well as the Xbox. Imagine what Chaos Theory will look like on the PC.

I understand why they would put HL2 on the Xbox. It's probably cheaper to just port the game to the Xbox than trying to learn a new piece of hardware for a game that is hot NOW. Why would I want to play HL2 on the PS3 in 2006 when the orignal game can out in 2004. Valve will probably just make a whole new game for the PS3. Which is good in my opinion.

[muchuukuri]

I thought splinter cell looked Identical on all three consoles and they were able to pull off some stuff on the PS2 they couldn't on any of the other consoles?? Am I wrong??

[Epsilon-Zero]

nah dude. most websites the PS2 and Gamecube version got a grade lower than the xbox, not because of the Live functionality but because of the graphics reperesentation and other elements.

[bustabusta196]

How can you say PS2 games can do stuff newer technology couldnt... just cause its a Playstation doesnt make it BETTER then an Xbox or Gamecube graphically.. id say Xbox SP:CT is better looking then PS2's.

Soulless: An Open Letter To The Video Game Industry
By Jordan LeDoux

I am but one person. There are those who have played games longer, or owned more systems. There are those who are more involved with the industry, or who spend more time playing video games. I don't claim to be any sort of expert on the inner workings of the large variety of professions that video game development and sales includes, but I contend that it no longer takes an expert to make the assertion that I have come to recently: the video game industry as a whole is losing its soul, and while it may be able to end-over-end continue to raise profits, it will on the long term lose the respectability and clout that it deserves if they continue on their current course.

Who is they? They is everyone. It's Sony to IGN. Microsoft to Gamestop. Ubisoft to Gamespot. Nintendo to EA. Joystiq to Kotaku. TeamXBox to PS3Forums. They is the producer, the developer, the retailer and the consumer. That's right, it's probably even you, and you don't even realize it.

In fact, I think part of the problem is that very few people realize it, and those who do profit too much from keeping their mouth shut. But realize what?

If you haven't guessed by now, I'm talking in large part about how the video game industry is no longer about the product(s). The industry isn't about giving accurate reviews, or using common sense. The industry isn't about being realistic or using facts. More than anything, the industry isn't about having fun.

The games are no longer about the plot lines or the gameplay or the replay value. They are not about the entertainment or the enjoyment, nor are they about the companionship of group entertainment. And slowly, they lost these things among every major group who deals with video games. From the very top level where Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo wear the emporer's clothes, down to the very bottom where consumers ignor the facts and make decisions based on preconceptions working backwards to justify their previous purchases.

How can every major group in the industry fall victim to such a flaw? Because in a perfect storm of "right place, right time" every single group allowed the bar to fall where capitalism depended on them. As an example, I would use the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

A long time ago making and distributing music was partially about what the consumer wanted. Sure, the studios still held all the cards, and they still made terrible deals with artists in order to squeeze those extra cents out of every dollar. Sure they leeched off of the talent of others and in some ways hampered the creativity and inginuity of the industry. The difference was at the time the media and the consumer didn't collaborate with them.

Some time in the last few decades several of the companies in the music industry realized that if they could get the media and the consumer to collaborate with them in maximizing their profits, that they would face little resistance from consumers on forming monopolies or cartels, and that the government wouldn't be able to step in since the cartel was in large part dependent on the consumer. They figured out how to manipulate the free market using the only thing that a free market depends on getting accurately: facts.

The reality is that without the right facts, or with false "facts", consumers cannot be expected to make accurate decisions that will result in a free market environment. Every company knows this, and every company, to some extent, tries to use this to their advantage. That's what marketting is: an attempt to control the facts that the market is aware of.

Just the same, the video game industry has built a house of cards out of the lies that they have fed consumers and themselves in a situation which can only be referred to as "group think". The term may sound familiar. "Group think" is a sociology principal which is used to describe a situation where a lie perpetuates itself through overwhelming majority. Basically, one person or one group tells a lie that may or may not be based partially on truth. This lie is a "convenient truth", a lie which is more comforting and easier to deal with than reality. Because of this, several other people don't speak out about the invalidity of the "fact", and with this silence comes acceptance from a wider group that this "fact" is actually true.

As numbers grow, and more and more people buy into the "truth", the people who told the original lie eventually are convinced themselves by virtue of the fact that no one proved them wrong. Surely if we had been telling a REAL lie someone would have said something, right? Over time, the difference between the truth and the "truth" is lost, and those who provide objective viewpoints are ridiculed for departing from the "reality" that the group has constructed. You may have heard of this term, "group think", when it was used to describe the failures in the CIA and FBI that led to the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States.

The video game industry has been telling themselves and their consumers a lie for almost a decade now, and I think we've finally come to the point where the people who told it actually believe it themselves.

This lie is progress for progress' sake. It is the idea that we need to go faster, bigger and shinier, and that these things are the same as value. It is the lie that the platform or the country of origin has ANYTHING to do with what video games are really supposed to be: entertainment.

Originally this lie was told by the big three. First Nintendo. This lie helped them vanquish SEGA, and as Sony caught on, they finished the job with the Dreamcast. The lie backfired though, and Sony turned the tables on Nintendo, using their own lie against them. Microsoft told the lie as well, be it on the PC or on the XBox platforms to overcome the consumer apathy of yet another competitor.

This lie has trickled down to the developers. EA, Square Enix, Konami, Koei, SEGA, Ubisoft... an all start line up of companies that have decided that "progress" is what is required out of games, not entertainment.

But like any lie, this one is easily vanquished by facts. All lies fall in the face of the truth, and they truth need only be told in order to stop the spread of falsities. Consumers, however, cannot be depended on for the truth. Who has the time to search out and tell everyone the truths in every market which they make purchases in? Do you look up government subsidies before your buy produce? Do you check on the workers who grow the beans when you get a cup a coffee? Consumers cannot be the watchdogs, especially in fast moving content based industries such as entertainment or productivity.

Thus the entire ability of the consumer to make accurate choices, the ability of companies to lie successfully, is dependent on the one group who actually profits from being the watchdog: the media. Like much of the media today, media in the video game industry thrive on telling convenient truths instead of reality. The difference is that consumers and the industry let them.

The developers of today hold all of the cards. They have the exclusive screenshots, the inside scoop, the new interview. They hold all of the content, and they beat the media over the head with it. Much of the media is too scared to say anything that matters to the consumer, or say what they really think before a game is released, (or many times after as well), because they are afraid of losing this preferred status with the developers. As a result the video game media becomes little more than a PR hype machine for their respective reporting topics. Playstation sites refrain from saying the things that need to be said about Playstation games for fear that through a trickle down effect, developers would see lost profits and hold them responsible.

Similarly XBox or Nintendo sites refrain from saying the things that have to be said. We're sorry, Excite Truck is fun at first, but its a one trick pony. You won't remember it six months from now. We're sorry, Project Gotham Racing 3 is a solid racer, but it has limitted gameplay over previous versions and the graphics needed some polishing. You won't be playing this after a new racer comes out for the 360. We're sorry, Resistance is a game which is excellent in both gameplay and story, but it's limitted by the genre; as a frist person shooter, you won't play this very much six months from now unless you adore online.

The facts of the games we buy are no longer told. And why? Because nobody wants to hear them. The developers don't want to see their product degraded, even rightly so, and bully media sites to ensure that. Consumers don't want to hear it because Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all been able to seperate out people into the type of gamer you are.

So you can see, the fault is widespread. As I said it was a near perfect storm of consumers being brainwashed into "fans", media getting held up for ransom by the developers, and the developers believing the origianl lie that the big boys told them: progress is all that matters.

When Table Tennis for X360 was released by Rockstar, it was widely ridiculed, (though most media outlets gave it fair reviews). Why? C'mon, pong? That's so 1980's. Where' the progress man? Similarly, consumers and media alike went on and on about Bully, a subpar game at best that many people will STILL tell you is the most awesome thing they've ever inserted into their console in order to preserve the meme that everyone has bought into: progress.

Do we need new console hardware? There are plenty of valid entertainment reasons to go another generation over PlayStation 2, Game Cube and XBox, but take a look at the consoles and ask yourself: is this progress, or is this improvement?

Even the Wii, touted for its fun gameplay and its "progress" in game design and user interface falls victim to the meme, for much of the industry won't say what needs to be said: the Wii is different, not revolutionary. Coffee did not make tea obsolete. The Wii, and its interface, is a matter of taste. It is not better or worse for the change, it is simply different. It is progress.

Improvement can really only take place at the game level. The industry as a whole, developer to consumer, has lost the concept of interactive entertainment. What are game supposed to be but entertainment that you take part in? Is this a concept that eludes us all? When you think of video games and movies, how are they different for you?

You see, at least outside of Japan, video games have a stigma for being reward based. They are games in the truest sense of the word. There are objectives and rewards; missions and paths to take. Today's video games function similarly to how a lab rat is rewarded for pressing the correct button. They are all about instant gratification.

But video games are just a form of entertainment, and through the loss of the industries soul, through the quest for "progress", no one has taken the time to stand up and say, "What good is progress if the direction we're heading is wrong?"

Movies have had nearly a century to fully mature. They have been through the hiccoughs and struggled with this situation before. I have full faith that the video game industry will pull through this similarly, but someone needs to say it. Someone needs to look at where we are and say the things that will set the industry back on track:

We need to move away from our idea of a person interacting with a computer. They need to interact with the content, with other people. I'm talking more than just "Live" or multiplayer gaming. I'm talking about gaming which is not a set of rewards strung along a set of arbitrary switches. I'm talking about games which tell a story, and make us think. Games which question the human condition, and comment on society the same way movies and music do. I'm talking about entertainment which is built out of the quest to produce something which consumers will enjoy and be entertained by, not "progress".

We need to move away from the time when we take a successful game and rerelease it with minor tweaks. There should never have been a PGR2 or a GTA 3. What there should have been is brand new ideas, brand new content, brand new outlooks on what entertainment and games really are.

We should be able to buy Madden once and receive free patches to update rosters and players. If they want to make a new game, they should make a new game. We should be able to buy games that build off one another and build upon your unique experience as a person.

Movies touch us because we relate personally in some way to the events taking place. The director doesn't try to tell us how these things relate to us, he simply builds a way for us to figure that out for ourselves. What video games need is the ability to touch the gamer. They need to be able to reach inside a person and bring out who they are, the experiences that they've had and the things that they've done.

As it is, the industry at all levels is preoccupied. They are consumed with turning profits and making the latest and greatest. The consumers are consumed with being at the bleeding edge. Experiencing what no one has had the chance to yet, moving from reward to reward by performing the same actions over and over. The media are consumed with satisfying people instead of doing their job. They are focused on being "fair" instead of being real.

But eventually the industry will wake up. When gamers start growing older, and they look back at what they've played over the last decade and realize that the most fun they've had was on the SNES they'll move on to other, more satisfying forms of entertainment, be it movies, music, or even (gasp) human interaction. When the bottom line gets affected, you'll see the industry cope. The companies that see it coming will be able to move and adapt, and those mired in the garbage that is most video game production will be left behind.

One day, the consumer and the media and the develoeprs will realize we've been chasing after progress what what we really need is the same thing people have been doing for hundreds of years: the ability to feel human and be entertained at the same time. Until then, feel free to go pick up the highly acclaimed, hyped and well reviewed Ultra Awesome Game 16... becuase the higher number means it's better, right?

[Rebon]

Overall very interesting, though-provoking, and extremely well written. I am not sure about the part where you use the RIAA as an example. I feel it weakens the piece, as people will feel you are deveating from the industry too much, and thus because "a whole 'nother can of worms". Consider removing this, or making it about gaming?

Here.... I tried just rewriting the transition. This draft includes major gammar/spelling fixes too.

Soulless: An Open Letter To The Video Game Industry

I am but one person. There are those who have played games longer, or owned more systems. There are those who are more involved with the industry, or who spend more time playing video games. I don't claim to be any sort of expert on the inner workings of the large variety of professions that video game development and sales includes, but I contend that it no longer takes an expert to make the assertion that I have come to recently: the video game industry as a whole is losing its soul, and while it may be able to end-over-end continue to raise profits, it will in the long term lose the respectability and clout that it deserves if they continue on their current course.

Who is they? They is everyone. It's Sony to IGN. Microsoft to Gamestop. Ubisoft to Gamespot. Nintendo to EA. Joystiq to Kotaku. TeamXBox to PS3Forums. They is the producer, the developer, the retailer and the consumer. That's right, it's probably even you, and you don't even realize it.

In fact, I think part of the problem is that very few people realize it, and those who do profit too much from keeping their mouth shut. But realize what?

If you haven't guessed by now, I'm talking in large part about how the video game industry is no longer about the product(s). The industry isn't about giving accurate reviews, or using common sense. The industry isn't about being realistic or using facts. More than anything, the industry isn't about having fun.

The games are no longer about the plot lines or the gameplay or the replay value. They are not about the entertainment or the enjoyment, nor are they about the companionship of group entertainment. And slowly, they lost these things among every major group who deals with video games. From the very top level where Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo wear the emperor’s clothes, down to the very bottom where consumers ignore the facts and make decisions based on preconceptions working backwards to justify their previous purchases.

How can every major group in the industry fall victim to such a flaw? Because in a perfect storm of "right place, right time" every single group allowed the bar to fall where capitalism depended on them. This isn’t a unique occurrence either; this whole scene has already played out in the music industry.

A long time ago making and distributing music was partially about what the consumer wanted. Sure, the studios still held all the cards, and they still made terrible deals with artists in order to squeeze those extra cents out of every dollar. Sure they leeched off of the talent of others and in some ways hampered the creativity and ingenuity of the industry. The difference was at the time the media and the consumer didn't collaborate with them.

Some time in the last few decades several of the companies in the music industry realized that if they could get the media and the consumer to collaborate with them in maximizing their profits, that they would face little resistance from consumers on forming monopolies or cartels, and that the government wouldn't be able to step in since the cartel was in large part dependent on the consumer. They figured out how to manipulate the free market using the only thing that a free market depends on getting accurately: facts.

The reality is that without the right facts, or with false "facts", consumers cannot be expected to make accurate decisions that will result in a free market environment. Every company knows this, and every company, to some extent, tries to use this to their advantage. That's what marketing is: an attempt to control the facts that the market is aware of.

Just the same, the video game industry has built a house of cards out of the lies that they have fed consumers and themselves in a situation which can only be referred to as "groupthink". The term may sound familiar. "Groupthink" is a sociology principal which is used to describe a situation where a lie perpetuates itself through overwhelming majority. Basically, one person or one group tells a lie that may or may not be based partially on truth. This lie is a "convenient truth", a lie which is more comforting and easier to deal with than reality. Because of this, several other people don't speak out about the invalidity of the "fact", and with this silence comes acceptance from a wider group that this "fact" is actually true.

As numbers grow, and more and more people buy into the "truth", the people who told the original lie eventually are convinced themselves by virtue of the fact that no one proved them wrong. Surely if we had been telling a REAL lie someone would have said something, right? Over time, the difference between the truth and the "truth" is lost, and those who provide objective viewpoints are ridiculed for departing from the "reality" that the group has constructed. You may have heard of this term, "groupthink", when it was used to describe the failures in the CIA and FBI that led to the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States.

The video game industry has been telling themselves and their consumers a lie for almost a decade now, and I think we've finally come to the point where the people who told it actually believe it themselves.

This lie is progress for progress' sake. It is the idea that we need to go faster, bigger and shinier, and that these things are the same as value. It is the lie that the platform or the country of origin has ANYTHING to do with what video games are really supposed to be: entertainment.

Originally this lie was told by the big three. First Nintendo. This lie helped them vanquish SEGA, and as Sony caught on, they finished the job with the Dreamcast. The lie backfired though, and Sony turned the tables on Nintendo, using their own lie against them. Microsoft told the lie as well, be it on the PC or on the XBox platforms to overcome the consumer apathy of yet another competitor.

This lie has trickled down to the developers. EA, Square Enix, Konami, Koei, SEGA, Ubisoft... an all star line up of companies that have decided that "progress" is what is required out of games, not entertainment.

But like any lie, this one is easily vanquished by facts. All lies fall in the face of the truth, and the truth need only be told in order to stop the spread of falsities. Consumers, however, cannot be depended on for the truth. Who has the time to search out and tell everyone the truths in every market which they make purchases in? Do you look up government subsidies before your buy produce? Do you check on the workers who grow the beans when you get a cup a coffee? Consumers cannot be the watchdogs, especially in fast moving content based industries such as entertainment or productivity.

Thus the entire ability of the consumer to make accurate choices, the ability of companies to lie successfully, is dependent on the one group who actually profits from being the watchdog: the media. Like much of the media today, media in the video game industry thrive on telling convenient truths instead of reality. The difference is that consumers and the industry let them.

The developers of today hold all of the cards. They have the exclusive screenshots, the inside scoop, the new interview. They hold all of the content, and they beat the media over the head with it. Much of the media is too scared to say anything that matters to the consumer, or say what they really think before a game is released, (or many times after as well), because they are afraid of losing this preferred status with the developers. As a result the video game media becomes little more than a PR hype machine for their respective reporting topics. Playstation sites refrain from saying the things that need to be said about Playstation games for fear that through a trickle down effect, developers would see lost profits and hold them responsible.

Similarly XBox or Nintendo sites refrain from saying the things that have to be said. We're sorry, Excite Truck is fun at first, but its a one trick pony. You won't remember it six months from now. We're sorry, Project Gotham Racing 3 is a solid racer, but it has limited gameplay over previous versions and the graphics needed some polishing. You won't be playing this after a new racer comes out for the 360. We're sorry, Resistance is a game which is excellent in both gameplay and story, but it's limited by the genre; as a first person shooter, you won't play this very much six months from now unless you adore online.

The facts of the games we buy are no longer told. And why? Because nobody wants to hear them. The developers don't want to see their product degraded, even rightly so, and bully media sites to ensure that. Consumers don't want to hear it because Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all been able to separate out people into the type of gamer you are.

So you can see, the fault is widespread. As I said it was a near perfect storm of consumers being brainwashed into "fans", media getting held up for ransom by the developers, and the developers believing the original lie that the big boys told them: progress is all that matters.

When Table Tennis for X360 was released by Rockstar, it was widely ridiculed, (though most media outlets gave it fair reviews). Why? C'mon, pong? That's so 1980's. Where' the progress man? Similarly, consumers and media alike went on and on about Bully, a subpar game at best that many people will STILL tell you is the most awesome thing they've ever inserted into their console in order to preserve the meme that everyone has bought into: progress.

Do we need new console hardware? There are plenty of valid entertainment reasons to go another generation over PlayStation 2, Game Cube and XBox, but take a look at the consoles and ask yourself: is this progress, or is this improvement?

Even the Wii, touted for its fun gameplay and its "progress" in game design and user interface falls victim to the meme, for much of the industry won't say what needs to be said: the Wii is different, not revolutionary. Coffee did not make tea obsolete. The Wii, and its interface, is a matter of taste. It is not better or worse for the change, it is simply different. It is progress.

Improvement can really only take place at the game level. The industry as a whole, developer to consumer, has lost the concept of interactive entertainment. What are game supposed to be but entertainment that you take part in? Is this a concept that eludes us all? When you think of video games and movies, how are they different for you?

You see, at least outside of Japan, video games have a stigma for being reward based. They are games in the truest sense of the word. There are objectives and rewards; missions and paths to take. Today's video games function similarly to how a lab rat is rewarded for pressing the correct button. They are all about instant gratification.

But video games are just a form of entertainment, and through the loss of the industries soul, through the quest for "progress", no one has taken the time to stand up and say, "What good is progress if the direction we're heading is wrong?"

Movies have had nearly a century to fully mature. They have been through the hiccoughs and struggled with this situation before. I have full faith that the video game industry will pull through this similarly, but someone needs to say it. Someone needs to look at where we are and say the things that will set the industry back on track:

We need to move away from our idea of a person interacting with a computer. They need to interact with the content, with other people. I'm talking more than just "Live" or multiplayer gaming. I'm talking about gaming which is not a set of rewards strung along a set of arbitrary switches. I'm talking about games which tell a story, and make us think. Games which question the human condition, and comment on society the same way movies and music do. I'm talking about entertainment which is built out of the quest to produce something which consumers will enjoy and be entertained by, not "progress".

We need to move away from the time when we take a successful game and re-release it with minor tweaks. There should never have been a PGR2 or a GTA 3. What there should have been is brand new ideas, brand new content, brand new outlooks on what entertainment and games really are.

We should be able to buy Madden once and receive free patches to update rosters and players. If they want to make a new game, they should make a new game. We should be able to buy games that build off one another and build upon your unique experience as a person.

Movies touch us because we relate personally in some way to the events taking place. The director doesn't try to tell us how these things relate to us, he simply builds a way for us to figure that out for ourselves. What video games need is the ability to touch the gamer. They need to be able to reach inside a person and bring out who they are, the experiences that they've had and the things that they've done.

As it is, the industry at all levels is preoccupied. They are consumed with turning profits and making the latest and greatest. The consumers are consumed with being at the bleeding edge. Experiencing what no one has had the chance to yet, moving from reward to reward by performing the same actions over and over. The media are consumed with satisfying people instead of doing their job. They are focused on being "fair" instead of being real.

But eventually the industry will wake up. When gamers start growing older, and they look back at what they've played over the last decade and realize that the most fun they've had was on the SNES they'll move on to other, more satisfying forms of entertainment, be it movies, music, or even (gasp) human interaction. When the bottom line gets affected, you'll see the industry cope. The companies that see it coming will be able to move and adapt, and those mired in the garbage that is most video game production will be left behind.

One day, the consumer and the media and the developers will realize we've been chasing after progress when what we really need is the same thing people have been doing for hundreds of years: the ability to feel human and be entertained at the same time. Until then, feel free to go pick up the highly acclaimed, hyped and well reviewed Ultra Awesome Game 16... because the higher number means it's better, right?

[luxurys]

some one what to make this live?

[Seb]

I've spoken to Jordan about reducing the word count, making the message clearer and looking to balance the article with some positives. If that happens I might make it live.

[Godzero]

Awesome job Jordon. I enjoyed reading it. After you fix what Seb said it will definitely be posted Live. Nice Article.