Wed, Jun 02, 2010 | 19:16 BST
Bungie didn’t want ‘Combat Evolved’ added to Halo title
Halo designer Jaime Griesemer has said that Bungie was reluctant to include the Combat Evolved tagline on the original Halo when it was released.
Speaking with Edge Magazine, Griesemer said that the firm originally “hated” the idea, but Microsoft insisted because it didn’t think Halo as a title worked by itself.
“Oh, man… the subtitle,” said Griesemer “At the time, Microsoft marketing thought Halo was not a good name for a videogame brand. It wasn’t descriptive like all the military games we were competing with.
“We told them Halo was the name, [and] the compromise was they could add a subtitle. Everyone at Bungie hated it. But it turned out to be a very sticky label and has now entered the gaming lexicon to the point where articles that have nothing to do with Halo get titles like ‘Skateboarding Evolved’.
“So I guess in hindsight it was a good compromise.”
Halo: Combat Evolved eventually went on to sell five million copies within three years.
Bungie’s latest and last Halo title for Microsoft, Reach, is slated to land on Xbox 360 September 14 and the Beta was played by over 2.7 million people.
Via CVG.
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Posted in: Hot, Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox Live
Tags: bungie, halo, halo: combat evolved, jaime griesmer
10 comments
#1
Gheritt White
02/06/10, 6:01 pm
Only five million? Is that across all platforms?
#2
DJ Deathstar
02/06/10, 6:07 pm
Think you mean 2.7 million people played the beta, not 22.7!
#3
AHA-Lambda
02/06/10, 6:09 pm
yeah only 5 million? Kinda small conisdering and it was easily the best game of them all O_o
#4
Hunam
02/06/10, 6:09 pm
It did evolve combat, so that’s ok.
#5
AHA-Lambda
02/06/10, 6:15 pm
lol i guess so
#6
Stephany Nunneley
02/06/10, 6:20 pm
@2 Thanks for noticing. Fixed. My fingers got number punching happy.
#7
szaromir
02/06/10, 6:45 pm
HaloCE sold 6.5M copies, last time Bungie commented on it (on Halo 2′s first anniversary).
#8
ybfelix
02/06/10, 7:01 pm
Original xbox only sold 20 millions at the end of its life.. I think 5m for launch title was very impressive?
When it came out on PC it was decidedly dated.
Also, are big-name games these days generally have a higher sales compare to previous gens? Or it’s just me cared more about such things than my younger self?
#9
Mike
02/06/10, 7:49 pm
Without wishing to appear rude, this news came out before Halo 2 was released.
#10
sickpuppysoftware
04/06/10, 8:19 am
I think I have subtitle blindness. I never notice when games have stupid extra titles added on not that I can’t watch French films. I can’t watch Fremch films but that’s not the reason.