GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

Halo 5 an "Important Milestone" for Xbox One, Exec Says

"Without Halo, Xbox isn't here."

63 Comments

The release of Halo 5: Guardians represents an "important milestone" for the Xbox One, according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer. Speaking during the Halo 5 livestream, Spencer praised the development team at 343 Industries for their work on the game, which he labeled a "purpose-built" Halo title.

No Caption Provided

"It's easy to say that an Xbox generation never really starts until you have a purpose-built Halo game, and this is Halo 5 from the ground up for Xbox One launching," Spencer said, as reported by DualShockers. "It's an important milestone for us with Xbox One. The game looks great, feels great, 60 frames per second and it feels for smooth when I'm playing."

Halo 5 is not technically the first Halo game for Xbox One, as Halo: The Master Chief Collection launched last year. But that game featured remastered versions of older games.

Also during his talk, Spencer talked about what Microsoft is doing to incentivize Xbox 360 players (who still make up the largest pool of Xbox players out there) to migrate forward to the Xbox One. Spencer says the introduction of backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 games, as well as compelling titles like Halo 5, may encourage people to make the jump.

"Our largest base out there right now is still 360 players," he said. "When we thought about this fall, we thought about what we could do for the 360 players. We obviously started with backwards compatibility announce at E3, we had the re-release of Gears 1, old Rare games with Rare Replay, but Halo, Halo is so important. Without Halo, Xbox isn't here.

"To be able to bring Halo with backwards compatibility, with Gears, with a Forza game… This line up for us was really tailored for the Xbox fan, this fall," he added. "And I'm really proud of the way the team stepped up. This is what it's all about."

The update that introduces backwards compatibility support on Xbox One goes live on November 12.

For more on Halo 5, check out GameSpot editor Mike Mahardy's impressions thus far. We're holding back our full review until we can test the game's live multiplayer servers.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are 63 comments about this story