14 DAY TRIAL // The launch issues encountered by Halo: The Master Chief Collection couldn't have been predicted, according to Microsoft's Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who claims that the internal testing methodology didn't include any procedure that could have showcased the game's errors when it came to matchmaking and other such things.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection launched back in November for the Xbox One, acting as one of the biggest exclusives released so far for the Microsoft console by remastering Halo 1, 2, 3, and 4 in all their glory.
Unfortunately for the franchise's millions of fans, the new title suffered from many different issues at launch, including lengthy matchmaking times, party errors, and other such things. Developer 343 Industries released plenty of updates but only until recently did it finally manage to fix the game for most players.
Microsoft and 343 didn't predict any problems for the game
Xbox division boss Phil Spencer admits to GameInformer that the issues were regrettable but he emphasizes that, throughout testing, the game performed really well and there were no signs that errors would affect the game in the outside world.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as anticipated, and the game performed poorly in the wild. Spencer emphasizes that the whole corporation learned some valuable lessons and that, moving forward, such errors shouldn't appear.
"Going into the launch our internal processes and testing methodologies had told us that we had a game that was ready to launch," Spencer says. "Then, when it launched, we learned some things we didn't know going into the launch – which is something we need to get better at. You're always going to learn something when you launch; you can't simulate the real-world environment completely inside of any sterile, fixed environment."
With Halo 5: Guardians, which should appear this fall on the Xbox One, such errors shouldn't happen, as already a special beta was organized on the console and a lot of feedback was gathered to avoid any issues on launch day.
