14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft Xbox boss Phil Spencer confirms that he doesn't want to turn the prized Halo franchise into an annual one, at least when it comes to its main shooter installments, as his goal is to ensure that the series can live for another 20 years and reach the status of Star Wars.
The Halo series kicked off back in 2002 with the original Halo: Combat Evolved from developer Bungie, which arrived on the first Xbox. Since then, lots of different installments have arrived on Xbox, Xbox 360, PC, or even Xbox One, branching out from the regular shooters into genres like twin-stick shooters, real-time strategy ones, and other such things.
Major Halo titles won't go annual
Right now, Microsoft and 343 Industries are getting ready to launch Halo 5: Guardians, the next major entry in the series, which is coming to the Xbox One. The series has already had several releases on the home console, but don't expect the main shooters to arrive at yearly intervals, like in the Call of Duty series.
This is at least according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who explains to Gamespot that he doesn't want to overuse the franchise, especially since one of the main advantages is that there are plenty of recognizable characters, from Master Chief to Cortana and others.
He also explains that the Halo series can live for another 20 more years and reach mainstream status, as Star Wars did, for example, provided it doesn’t run into the ground.
"I don't want to overplay or overuse the franchise. It's a franchise and an IP I expect to be around 20 years from now, much the same way Star Wars and Spider-Man and other things are. I think it has the weight that it can support that, but I think that the franchise then needs to be managed in a way that doesn't burn it out," he explains.
So far, Halo has had a major release on Xbox One, in the form of The Master Chief Collection, not to mention two smaller installments, namely Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike. Next year, the new Halo Wars 2 arrives on the console as well as on PC.