Halo Waypoint to "aggregate everything"

By Tom Bramwell Published 27 July, 2009

May be for Xbox Live Gold only.

Microsoft's new Halo destination for Xbox Live, Halo Waypoint, is intended to "aggregate everything that you would want to watch from the Halo universe", but it's also "a lot more ambitious than that".

That's according to Frank O'Connor, formerly of Bungie and now of Microsoft's internal Halo silo, 343 Industries, who was speaking at Comic-Con (thanks Kotaku).

"It's going to evolve in features and functionality to make it the prime destination for the Halo fan," O'Connor said, tracking Halo gameplay, Achievements and other stuff. A bit like Bungie.net except, er, owned by Microsoft.

O'Connor also said that Microsoft was wrestling with who should have access to the Waypoint destination, which will be available from the Xbox 360 dashboard.

"Certainly, if you're a Gold member you're going to get access to all of that experience," he said.

"We want everyone to have this same experience, but the question is, if there's multiplayer features that are technically connected to Gold, it's easier to deal with. There's a lot of reasons that Gold makes sense."

Halo Waypoint will also provided access to the newly announced Halo anime films, although O'Connor admitted they would probably not go out at the same time they do on regular television.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (17) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • comissars_handgun #1 3 years ago

    I'm so sick of Halo. MS seem determined to milk every last drop of cash from the franchise since it seems like every week they announce some new Halo related crap.

    And I really enjoyed the first one, it's just been gradually downhill since then.

  • Darren #2 3 years ago

    Well Halo is a hugely popular franchise on the Xbox so it's to be expected that Microsoft will milk it for all its worth. I'm surprised it has taken them this long to add such a feature to the Xbox 360 to be honest.

  • Arcadiian #3 3 years ago

    Blimey, going a bit overboard aren't you? There's only been 3 main Halo games and a spin-off in nearly 8 years, right? Make that 2 spin-off's when ODST is released. I'm not a big Halo fan, but millions of others seem happy to play the games. If anything, the fans have been milking Bungie for all they're worth. They can't get enough.

  • Xerx3s #4 3 years ago

    commissar\'s_handgun: And we are sick of people saying that BS. What a strange coincidence.


    Sniper_Fox: Not by a long shot. It's only a very small minority of sad people that hates halo, as shown by the ever increasing sales. It also doesn't rival mario since there have been 7 to 8 mario games on average, each year for the past 20 something years. Considering that there only have been 4 halo games over the past 8 years, you're being a bit of a dramaqueen.

  • matrim83 #5 3 years ago

    Agree with Arcadian. How many Splinter cell games have we had so far? How many Final Fantasy games? How many Tomb raider games? Jesus even Sly racoon series has had 3 games in one gen.

    Never even mind the non stop deluge of FIFA, NFS etc.

    And its worth a mention that quality of all three Halo titles (and thee RTS spin off) has been exceptional.

  • Darren #6 3 years ago

    @Sniper_Fox - Restricting content for Silver users, including delaying demos a week, is just Microsoft's subtle way of trying to entice Silver subscribers to upgrade to Gold. As some others have pointed out it seems bizarre that paying an annual fee should give you access to FREE demos as soon as they're released (which isn't true of the PC or PS3) and, more bizarrely, discounted DLC from time to time! Yeah, right paying £30 to £40 per annum is well worth it to save a quid here and there, now and again! ;)

    Yeah, most people pay the subscription to play games online but all the other formats offer that for free. So what is the subscription for exactly? Some say standard voice-comms and Friends lists but those actually come built into the console and can be used by Silver users outside of games anyway so that's not it.

    Although LIVE is only available for a few PC games (some would say thankfully!) such as GTA IV, Street Fighter IV, Halo 2, Gears of War and FUEL, I can play all of those online if I want despite only being a Silver user. In other words it doesn't cost me anything to play Microsoft endorsed games on the PC so why does it cost money on the Xbox 360? :?

    I suppose the answer is it does in a way because there are so few Games for Wndows LIVE games overall, not every Xbox 360 game that find its way onto the PC is LIVE enabled, for example the recent Bionic Commando isn't (although it can still be played online outside of the LIVE account). If Microsoft had been able to fleece PC owners for a subscription too, like they tried and failed to, then I've absolutely no doubt that there would have been a lot more Games for Windows LIVE enabled titles.

    Still as an occasional online gamer this suits me fine as I no longer feel I'm throwing £40 per year away to a greedy corporation just because I'm not playing games online like I was on the 360.
    Edited by 1 at 27/07/09 @ 10:10

  • WinterSnowblind #7 3 years ago

    Games that have been milked more than Halo:
    Call of Duty, Ratchet and Clank, Metal Gear Solid, Pokemon, Tomb Raider, Guitar Hero, Final Fantasy, Mario, Grand Theft Auto, Street Fighter, Mega Man.. Need I go on?

    Compared to most big franchises, releasing one spin-off and an expansion pack isn't too bad. Adding a "waypoint" so fans can access more news about the franchise does not count as "milking" under any definition. I didn't see this kind of outcry when Nintendo put up a channel for Metroid on the Wii to get news about the new games, why is Halo suddenly the worst thing ever when it does this? Compared to other big franchises, Halo has been very tame.

    @Sniper_Fox
    I think it's great that MS are finally given us PAYING Gold members more content. Things like 1vs100, Joyride and that upcoming Golf game are great reasons to actualy have a membership. Yes, yes, Sony's service is totally free but you also have to take into account that the PSN is totally modeled after XBL, without it the PS3's online service would be no better than the PS2's. Sony's decision to make it free is purely competitive as their still playing catch up with everything they do (in regards to online play).

  • penhalion #8 3 years ago

    Speaking as someone who played all te halo games but, isn't even vaguly a rabid halo fan. I'm hoping this nonsense new channel is optional or can at least be hidden.

  • Teamallstar #9 3 years ago

    The halo franchise is ten years old and there are only 3 proper games and one spin off RTS in existence! I don't really think that we could call that "milking" the franchise!?!

    Look at call of duty which will have had 6 games in 6 years, all sports franchise games with new releases every year, metal gear solid with a steady stream, mario everything, final fantasy XXVIII and the list goes on!

    I for one think that we have been starved of halo games with having to wait 3 years in between each new release!

    There are a lot of brain dead trolls who love to hate on halo! Why don't they just leave the halo threads alone and stick to commenting on whatever side scrolling piece of shit Sony or nintendo have released this week?

  • themorganator #10 3 years ago

    @Teamallstar

    "There are a lot of brain dead trolls who love to hate on halo! "

    They're just PS3 owners bitchin at another Xbox announcement. This week: Xbox announces new Halo space for Gold members; last week: Fony announce that Home's "still not finished".

    typical.

  • skillian #11 3 years ago

    It's true that Halo hasn't been milked anywhere nearly as badly as some other franchises, but in the last year and a half, there have been four Halo games released or announced, all with a ton of media hype. You can't blame people for thinking they've heard a bit too much about it lately.

  • comissars_handgun #12 3 years ago

    everyone who says something negative about halo is a ps3 user! for the record I have a 360 and own Halo 1,2 and 3. I do not own a ps2, let alone a ps3.

  • mega7ech #13 3 years ago

    More Halo, more Halo, more Halo!!!! :)





    ....what, I'm serious!

  • RedSparrows #14 3 years ago

    what a retarded list of comments. For the most part.

    I don't see people moaning that MW2 looks to be the same damn game as MW1, but with added snowmobiles.

    Hey, I just added to it! :(
    Edited by 1 at 27/07/09 @ 17:36

  • Syrette #15 3 years ago

    Sniper_Fox is EG's new best (worst?) troll. Congratulations. You've beaten some (un)impressive competition.
    Edited by 1 at 27/07/09 @ 17:40

  • busboy33 #16 3 years ago

    "but the question is, if there's multiplayer features that are technically connected to Gold, it's easier to deal with. There's a lot of reasons that Gold makes sense."

    . . . or, you let the Silvers see the content, see what being a Gold member gets you, and encourage them to make the leap by showing them what they are missing.

    Just throwing ideas ot there, MS.

  • busboy33 #17 3 years ago

    @SniperFox:

    "I really wish Sony had pissed all over MS this gen with the PS3, they are really starting to annoy me."

    STARTING to annoy you?!? You mean this you just getting started being a dick? You can actually get worse?