Xbox Series X Launches This November, Halo Infinite Delayed to 2021 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2020 / 4,824 Views
Microsoft announced their next generation console, the Xbox Series X, will launch worldwide this November. Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries in a separate post announced it will no longer launch alongside the Xbox Series X and has been delayed to 2021.
"We have made the difficult decision to shift our release to 2021 to ensure the team has adequate time to deliver a Halo game experience that meets our vision," said 343 Industries studio head Chris Lee.
"The decision to shift our release is the result of multiple factors that have contributed to development challenges, including the ongoing COVID-related impacts affecting us all this year. I want to acknowledge the hard work from our team at 343 Industries, who have remained committed to making a great game and finding solutions to development challenges. However, it is not sustainable for the well-being of our team or the overall success of the game to ship it this holiday.
"We know this will be disappointing to many of you and we all share in that sentiment. The passion and support the community has shown over the years has been incredible and inspiring. We wanted nothing more than to play our game with the community this holiday. The extra time will let us finish the critical work necessary to deliver the most ambitious Halo game ever at the quality we know our fans expect."
There will still be thousands of playable games at launch on the Xbox Series X through backwards compatibility as well as over 100 games optimized for the console, including Destiny 2, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Madden NFL 21, and more.
More than 50 new games are planned to launch by the end of 2020 that will release on the Xbox Series X and Xbox One, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla,Dirt 5,Gears Tactics,Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and Watch Dogs: Legion. There are also several Xbox Series X console exclusives, including exclusives like The Medium, Scorn, Tetris Effect: Connected, and more.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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How many systems have launched without a single new first party title before? MS don't have anything else lined up right? It's just going to be 3rd parties and backwards compatiblity. Crazy.
The most heavily promoted PS2 titles I saw at launch were SSX and Kessen, which was a historical tactics game from Koei. Both were published by EA. No Naughty Dog, Insomniac, or Sucker Punch titles, Gran Turismo 3 A-spec didn't come out until the following year, and Final Fantasy IX was a PS1 game.
@Barkley - You're ignoring this is the first gen with cross play being a focus. Under normal circumstances they might just take a game that could work as a last gen title and make it exclusive. Or maybe they throw together some mediocre games with pretty graphics. Hence, you aren't looking at the big picture.
Not arguing this is a good strategy per se, but its certainly different than the past. So to do a direct comparison is ignorant or disingenuous. You don't even need a Xbox to play all the upcoming games.
I mean cross gen, not cross play.
Wait, it's 3rd parties and backwards compatiblty? Always has been.
You might as well delay the series X. There isnt a game that makes the series X a worthy purchase.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales and the rumours are that it will include a copy of Spider-Man PS4.
Even if Halo Infinite released on Series X at launch, you could still get that game on PC & the Xbox One. So it's almost no different to a 3rd Party Multi-plat. So you could argue Halo Infinite isn't a game worthy enough to purchase an Xbox SX. Unless you care about performance & graphics that much, there's no reason to purchase an Xbox SX even if Halo Infinite launched with it.
Most people don't have and can't afford a gaming pc so thats why 100 of millions of consoles sell so having halo on pc is not going to hurt series x only help it
wow...
Slaughterhouse. That's what this generation will be. Said it before and gonna say it again, MS was yet again caught with their pants down. It's not about how many studios you have, it's about how you use them. This is unacceptable and sales will show it. I am baffled by people who come out in favor of MS with this when they won't even have a cross-gen exclusive release for launch. I mean how in the name of God can you have such a terrible launch when you have 15(!) internal studios?
I won't even get into the Halo fiasco, but for the game itself, it was obviously not an "early build" as they stated, but an unfinished product, that they tried to push on fans. Not cool MS, not cool...
Phil Spencer back in June: ”I felt good after the PS5 show and I thought the games line-up we’re gonna have at launch I’ve felt really good about. " :)
🤔 I thought everybody was saying the build they showed was months old.
I think this is the right call to delay, but at the same time this was their big console launch game so it’s also a bad move.
no the build was 2 weeks halo developer said it was an old build from a couple of weeks ago.
Eeek, good for the game assuming its more than just graphical tweaks but bad for Series X's launch. I hope this doesn't cause them to money hat a big third party title this fall.
Ms should delay it’s console too, all it’s games and controller work on current gen, what’s the point?
Launching the original Xbox with Halo as a launch title turned out to be a big win for Microsoft. It is a shame (and weird) that they have not been able to launch a new Xbox console with a Halo title since 2001. Seems like a no brainer.
I guess Xbox Series X will fail hard during the first months - can they recover?
Yeah this is huge. It's the right call for Halo Infinite but it's gonna hurt XSX immensely. They almost have to undercut Sony on price now, since every game on Xbox Series X you could also get on PS5...
This is going to be a rough launch for SX, hooe they can survive it with Sonys current state of mind when it comes o PS5. They are building a console and a campaign thats already hard to beat, and now this happned to SX.
Wow.
Well, MS maybe should have done that before showing it.. feels like they want the marketing to fail. The only game playable will be third party sequels which feels like most already got tired of last gen. Maybe they should have just delayed launch to March or holiday next year tbh.
You know.. i want to rephrase a bit, after reading the twitter post, i do agree they have to put their team's health and perfection the game first. Just unfortunate they are biting hard on that release date. A misstep from the start can make you lose and entire gen. Don't think it will be the case, but they could have delayed the launch. Switch launch mid gen and in March and was successful. It did launch with a big title tho, which could have been the case here with Halo in 2021 for a 1-2 punch.
spencer is the biggest idiot in gaming today
Good call. I am always happy if a game gets delayed if the consumer ends up with a better product because of it.
Hopefully the next time they showcase the game it's got Ray Tracing on.
Sucks it's not a launch title, but at the end of the day it's the right thing to do.
The only reason for me to buy a Xbox Series.
Basically, they've decided that preserving the Halo brand is more important than having a strong console launch. I agree with that, in that the Halo franchise really needs an excellent game. As I've said before, Halo is teetering on the edge between top-tier franchise, and average AAA game. Another entry (like Guardians) that is just very good, and it'll likely slip into the "just another AAA game" category. But, if they can make this one a truly great game, Halo will be right back up there with the greatest IPs in gaming. That's probably more valuable in the long run than moving a couple million more units during the launch window of the new consoles.
this delay will help it get the legendary 90 on open critics and metacritics!
lets just hope 343 is up to the plate this time!
This sucks as i didnt mind the visuals but this will only make the game better. I hope the delay isnt that long
Well that sucks, rly. Another game i was looking for is delayed. Halo is my favorite series and i was rly looking for Infinite. I didnt care about all criticism about graphic, since for me it looked beautiful and gameplay was great. Oh well i just hope Cyberpunk and WD Legion wont get deleyed because if they did i wont have anything to play until the end of year since there are no games i look for beside Halo,Cyberpunk and Legion
I would rather they release the product in a good state even if it takes till 2022. MCC on console was a disaster for years before it became playable. Halo 4 was a disaster, possibly the biggest fail in AAA gaming (at least for me and my friends) and Halo 5 was also divisive even though it was a step in the right direction. A lot is riding on this game. They are doing the right thing making multiplayer free-to-play but both sides of the product (campaign and multiplayer) need to be in a good state at release. They can't be missing features at launch like with Halo 4 and 5. It can't have constant server issues like with console MCC. IMO this could turn the halo series around for the better and they should spend whatever additional months in development to get it right.
is psychonaughts2 aytleast launching?
Nope it got delayed to 2021 and it's not an Xbox exclusive anyway so it wouldn't really help to move units.
I said long ago I was skeptical about this achieving releasing on time. Its simple guys, be skeptical about all 1st party games. It would be interesting if the MP came first given its F2P. However, I imagine they want to launch it all at once to boost hype.
Good that we have confirmation for November, just a matter of the day now.
On the Halo Infinite, it was obvious it wouldn't be possible to solve all the issues in a couple months, no matter how much some users pretend it was easy stuff or unimportant. The covid excuse I think is a little silly, it isn't something that happened this past couple weeks and would create after that a several months delay, it is due to the harsh backlash.
Aw damnit
I'd rather play Halo infinite as a finished product than a preview program version. Just give me a Cyberpunk Xbox Series X bundle.
Visuals didn't bother me, the game looks fun as hell. Guess this delay will only make the game better. Plenty to play so not exactly in a rush to play it. Take your time.
Why was this downvoted?
Probably because the VGChartz community is sick and tired of people making excuses for Microsoft.
Downvoted for console warz, why else
@okr How dare i have an opinion XD
I doubt it's incomplete and buggy to be honest. I think they want to launch with ray tracing on XSX.
Instead of patching it in later like they originally intended.
There is zero chance that they're delaying there biggest title in years from launching with their new console because they don't want to patch in ray tracing later, like they said they would. They're delaying it because it just generally isn't good enough, and they recognize that Halo must have an excellent release of they want to keep that franchise in the top tier.
Oh it won't just be that, I just mean that it's not because the content isn't finished or it's buggy. They really want to improve the visuals of the game and that will take a while to do so. This improvement will also include ray tracing.
"exclusives"...
Well within one post you went from talking about "exclusives" to "console exclusives" that should tell you what I mean right there.
Medium was listed under the "Console launch exclusive" tag which is basically just a timed exclusive I believe. That's how MS words timed exclusives. Especially since this developer's past games were timed as well.
https://www.rocketchainsaw.com.au/the-medium-is-a-timed-exclusive-for-xbox-series-x/#:~:text=What%20does%20the%20term%20%27console,in%20about%206%2D12%20months.
