Microsoft justifies price for Halo 3: ODST

Oh Noez! What am I going to do OMG! No one told me! What am I ever to do!? Lmao BTW you know that's not what is stated in the article. All I'm saying is that that one sentence is very misleading if read correctly. I think we both know that now.

Finish the fight... a little more.

Tell you what Bungie, take out the multiplayer component (which I already have and don't play), and charge me $20 less. Sound fair to you?

"At the time of those statements, the overall scope of Halo 3: ODST was not yet finalized, and since then the project has grown increasingly more ambitious." In other words we want money and since the Halo series is a cash cow, why not just milk it some more! I'm not complaining though, I'm definitely buying the game.

I keep seeing people say "they added so much in and it is totally worth 60 bucks", but let me ask you, besides including Halo 3: MP content, what exactly did they add... Oh that's right, another short, uninspired campaign. But, that is totally fine, I will play through it, as will many others, but for christ's sake people, realize when you are being fleeced.

Bungie and MS are selling you a, likely, short campaign and the same fucking game you have been playing for the past few years, with some a few new maps to make it feel less painful when they ram it in, with no lube.

Yeah, and just because things "look the same", doesn't mean they build a different model or such. Besides, why wouldn't most of the stuff look similar, if not exactly the same. It's still the Halo universe.

For the people suggesting that the campaign is uninspiring or weak, how would you know this? You just saw a glimpse of it through demos such as E3. For all you know, the campaign in this game could be one of the best in all the Halo games. Give Bungie more credit. When they say that this game is going to be mostly about campaign and not multiplayer like the others, you know they mean business.

The pricing is a sham but they know you're going to pay for it so why should they care? What I really object to is they are currently forcing people to buy legendary map pack just to play team slayer. Why don't they just charge you a subscription to play Halo? We're almost there. They made it compulsory to buy the maps to play and then they say you're getting value because they are throwing in the maps that you've already been forced to buy. What a load of crap. After being screwed on the heroic map pack I refuse to pay for map packs any more.

Just like a circle, a Halo retard will buy the same mediocrity over and over again.

MS is not going to stop whoring Halo anytime soon. This is really a non-story.

The MP for ODST are new maps, not previously released maps.

Maybe they should post some sort of contest for fans, and the winner has a map pack named after them.

"The Alex Map Pack"... eh... it could work, it'd be a fun concept.

They could release pics for the upcoming maps and allow gamers to come up with a 1 page story line about the map and how the map got it's name, or something like that.

at the end of the day, this is overpriced because you shrills pay WAY too much for map packs. on the pc, in unreal/quake days, maps are , um FREE! the only reason they sell them on consoles (for so much money) is because you chumps will pay for it.

this business of selling 2/3 maps for 6/8 bucks is laughable. try as you will, i can never buy that unless they are the worlds most killerest mappzzzz. ands thats not likely. the games original vision usually has the most fleshed out, relevant content as opposed to add ons.

I will give bungie credit for usually having high quality maps, but dude, them prices are fucking ridiculous.

I was really hoping when I saw the higher price that they weren't going to try and justify it by the fact that the previous (and three new) Halo 3 maps were included.

Really, I don't like the idea of paying for something twice.
Sixty dollars is a fine value if you don't already have those maps and actually want them, but how many people buying ODST won't have already bought the packs, anyway?

I haven't even heard anything about any other form of competetive multiplayer (not co-op Firefight), which is what Halo is famous for. If there isn't to be one, it appears as though we're paying full price for a (probably shorter than Halo 3) campaign and this Firefight mode, without the apparent saving grace of the Halo games, the competetive multiplayer. Which is all well and good for an expansion price, but not for the price of a full game.

I'm sure that after the game has come, and the new glow has faded, we'll likely look back and realize that we all did actually pay the majority of the price for maps that we already had bought. It's just a shame that a nifty new chapter in the Halo series has to be tarnished by this.

And about the backtracking issue in Halo 3, it was not completely evident for me the first few times through the campaign, but now it's like a slap in the face how obvious it is that almost every single level is nothing but backtracking. It's just a matter of which ones use it more.

This is why I never buy map add-ons. 1) They don't go with the game if I decide to sell it/trade it later on. 2) They almost always re-release them in some GOTY edition/expansion/whatever for "free."

Pricing is not acceptable. This will be the first Halo game that I do not buy.

This game should be no more than $39.99. So what it has a new campaign? The Fallout 3 DLC was a new campaign. Halo ODST isn't a full game and shouldn't be sold as one.

I love how he says "from an entirely new character!" as though that effects pricing... lol

LOL! Oh yea now I see what you did there.

They should have bundled ODST with Halo 3, that would've been perfect.

IS EVERYONE BUT ME FORGETTING THAT MICROSOFT PROMISED FIRST PARTY GAMES WOULD COST $50 NOT $60 dollars?!?!?! such as Perfect Dark Zero as well as a couple others during/near launch. If you go way back with the xbox and xbox 360 you would remember that. but i guess bungie and microsoft did sort of split. so nevermind.
BUT HALO 3 WAS SUPPOSED TO BE $50 AND IT WASN'T!
that's all i have to say
peace

You are all stupid, no one should have to pay $60 for any game no matter what!! Fuck all you fuck faces for even debating this issue!!

So here's my question: Is ODST an expansion or a whole new game? This is driving me crazy, because I keep hearing it's an expansion, and then I hear it's an actual game.

If you think the pricing is too high don't buy it. It's that simple.

I love Halo, I really do. They're amazing games, but maybe we should boycott!

Just wait 3 months til an online retailer discounts this game then go get it, GOSH

Halo ODST looks good Halo was fun New Mombasa was a fun level in Halo 2 now theres an entire game on it plus Firefight mode looks cool kind of like Horde mode (Gears best Multiplayer mode) collector's edition comes with Reach Beta (who doesnt like beta) and a controller so the game plus the controller is $79.99 for a game and a controller seems like a good deal to me

A few things( by the way I am intrested in this game just because it looks fun and i have a budget for video games and have extra money { and im a 17 yr old teen, so all my money goes to games,girls,gadgets(g4?) anyways}, so I plan on buying it at release.
1:i love how everyone b*cthes over this stuff
2:I want to thank you all for argueing for a LONG TIME, i just spent 3 hrs reading it(plane layover) and i am entertained
3:If you dont like the game franchise, then why read these articles?
4:What happened to "hey looks like a good game" or "ooh, this game looks sucky",then go about your buisness?
5:Why do you take the time to type Huge comments on other commentors?
6:Why did i take the time to write this( im such a hypocrite.....)
7:this is more than a few things and my grammer sucks( even though my english is an average 98-99)
8: I think this game looks good.
p.s. i tried the beta, it rox sox

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading all of this. And please, someone correct me if I'm wrong on something.....but also back up what you say with SOME kind of reference.

First of all, quit complaining about the price of games. EVERYONE would rather pay less for something, but you gotta look at what goes into making the product. There's not just a couple of little old ladies cranking out code in their basement to make games, then just copying them on blank cd's. If you're REALLY wondering, check out the credits at the end of the game. They usually read like a movie. And shouldn't all of those people get something extra the better a game sells??

Second, name of the game aside, this is NOT an expansion pack. Or, I guess it depends on what you would call an expansion pack. I generally thought that an expansion pack meant you had to have the original game in order to play the "expansion". This doesn't add more levels to Halo 3, it gives you a whole new game. No, I don't know how long it will take to beat. Yes, I hope it will take more than 3 hours. (I'm assuming it will.) I also understand that Bungie is calling this an expansion. "Halo 3: Recon is a standalone, disc-based campaign expansion to Halo 3". WTF??

And last......I'll admit, I'm a little confused about this. The whole multiplayer thing. Here's the way I understand it. Firefight will only be played as ODST. There won't be 4 MasterChiefs fighting the "hoarde". Also, ODST multiplayer will be separate from Halo 3 multiplayer. What I'm confused about is.....why are they including the shipped maps on the standalone disc? Will all of these maps be able to be played in the ODST multiplayer? I thought the standalone disc would only be used with Halo 3.

Anyway, I may be waaaaaay off about this stuff, and I don't mind being proved wrong about something. But I do want to be PROVED wrong, and not just told, "Hey, that's not how it is....it's going to be like this.", by someone who has no idea what they're talking about. lol

This is really lame. I remember going on two years ago, when it was announced Bungie was going independent. I remember how excited their community was, how excited I was.

Fast forward. We have two Halo games announced, with concurrent production cycles, no new I.Ps in sight, this is just the bitter icing on top of the over cooked cake. Bungie is whoring the Halo franchise even more than it did then., and Microsoft is taking advantage of Bungie, and its fan base now more than ever.

Seriously, we as gamers have to expect, and demand more. Publishers and developers every year are pushing the boundries of how much capital they can make. By cutting corners, reusing assets and engines to the point of exhaustion, and by leveraging franchise power to compensate for a lack of innovation and value.Like a toddler annoying his parents, they are testing how much they can get away with. And they're not going to stop pushing untill a clear line is drawn in the sand.


Its sad, while some developers are pushing the envelope it terms of value per dollar, that Microsoft would charge 60$, for what is essentially an expansion.



ODST uses the exact same engine as Halo 3. The majority of the game recycles Halo 3 assets. The game will almost certainly be shorter than Halo 3, which in and of it self is one of the shortest games this generation. Has 1 co-op mode, and in terms of multiplayer has 3 Halo 3 maps. And its 60 $.

In terms of the experience in and of it self. You can't use Covenant weapons, you can only use weapons your handed. So the experience is much more narrow. Im not nessarily opposed to that, but in terms of value per dollar, it doesn't help.

The reality is, if a developer can reuse one games assets, its engine, and release less content (not even considering the lack of unique content) all for the same price. Well your just not going to see sensible developers pushing boundaries. Why would they, when its only getting more and more profitable to not innovate, to not release value.

Why go through a full 100+ man team,with a 3 year production cycle to create a new game, when we can take a fraction of that team, recycle most of the former productions assets, and iron a game out in a year and a half production cycle. Especially when we can get away with charging the same amount.

When are we going to demand that this trend stops? Because publishers aren't going to collectively volunteer to forgo increasing profit margins. Just stop and think. Pay attention.

How much did we expect to pay for XBL arcade/ PSN titles three years ago, compared to today?

How much did DLC cost three years ago, compared today? Something like the combustible map pack for example would of been intolerable three years ago. But gradual desensitization has given publishers more leeway.

Think about Guitar Hero, and Call of Duty. It wasn't that long ago, that only sports games had a expected annual release. Now, we are witnessing more and more titles following that trend. Many games are now even pushing for bi-annual releases. If you would of told me a couple of years ago, Valve of all developers would be releasing a fullfledged sequel after just a year, I would of called you bat shit crazy.

I just hope, that when publishers finally figure out how much they can get away with, I can still call my self a gamer.

for the Left4Dead bashers. play it on pc and get back to me. just cause your console version sucks.....

ahh crap cant afford this now feck you microsoft

all i have to say on the matter is , that if you have the money on hand to buy these items then by all mean go for it .but if you feel that it is not worth fine ,but don.t come on here bitch about the product you refuse to buy or try to persuade people from buy it .cause thats just stupid & childish.