Halo 3 will likely be a killer app for XBox 360

Michael Gartenberg | September 23, 2007, 11:40 PM

Once upon a time there  was a platform called Macintosh that had very few games for it at the time and worse, no good first person shooters. Lo and behold a small company called Bungie started making some really hot titles in this genre for the Mac and they attracted the attention of a little software company in Redmond who had some gaming ambitions of their own. Not long after, that company launched a new game system called XBox and the flagship titles came from the Bungie software team. It was called Halo. XBox survived a dearth of titles early on because of Halo and consumers bought the box because of it.

Fast forward, this week, Microsoft will launch Halo 3 for the XBox 360. I've had a chance to play with a review copy for a bit and now the embargo is lifted it's safe for me to say, this is going to be a monster hit for MSFT and it's the type of game that will sell systems... probably a lot of them.

People forget that once you strip away all the fancy graphics, connectivity, media centric features and HiDef, game consoles are still really about only one thing. GAMES! Halo is exactly the kind of title that console vendors need. First, it appeals to the hardcore gamer, the folks who traditionally spend lots of money of hardware and software. Second, it's a first party title so there's no hope for a consumer hoping it will appear on a Playstation or Wii anytime soon. Or ever.

Halo 3 has been one of the most anticipated titles in the history of gaming and Microsoft and Bungie delivered well. I believe they've met expectations and the result is it's likely to also become one of the best selling titles in the history of gaming as well.

I'll be out at the Bellevue launch on Monday evening, let me know if you're going to  be there.