By KIM BELLARD
If you are of a certain age – say, mine, that is to say, a Baby Boomer – last week’s announcement that Microsoft was going to release a new version of Halo on Sony’s PlayStation console may have passed you by. So what, you might have said? If, on the other hand, you are one of the three-fourths of Americans who play video games, you might have more immediately grasped the significance.
The gaming industry is like porn industry in that it tends to be early on the technology front. Since I don’t follow the porn industry, I try to watch the gaming industry to see what trends in it may suggest for the future of other industries, especially healthcare.
In case you weren’t aware, Halo is a Microsoft game, and has historically been played on Microsoft’s Xbox console. Sony’s PlayStation is Microsoft biggest competitor, and has been winning the war handily. So making Halo available on PlayStation is a somewhat surprising move. As Zachary Small wrote in The New York Times: “It is the equivalent of Disney letting Mickey Mouse roam Universal Studios.”
Or, as Grant St. Clair marveled in Boing Boing:
I cannot possibly emphasize how big a deal this is, but odds are you already know yourself. Halo is bar none the biggest IP Xbox has, and historically one of the biggest draws to the console. It’d be like Nintendo suddenly putting Super Mario Galaxy on Steam. This is a tacit admission that Xbox has lost the hardware war — the writing was on the wall already, granted, but this italicizes and underlines it.
A gamer told BBC Newsbeat that the announcement was “massive” and “broke the internet a little bit.” She’s happy about the news, adding: “I know there’s a bit of controversy about it coming to PlayStation, but I don’t see any reason why it should be like that at all. I just think it’s a win for all gamers.”
So, whether you realize it or not, this is kind of a big deal.
Microsoft has desperately been trying to stay relevant in gaming. A couple years ago Microsoft shelled out $70 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard, and a couple years prior to that paid $7.5b for ZeniMax Media. Still, though, as Joost van Dreunen, a market analyst and professor at New York University, told Mr. Small: “When it comes to consoles, Xbox has always been the bridesmaid and never the bride. They just haven’t been able to outmaneuver PlayStation and Nintendo.”
It may have found a way. Earlier this year Microsoft made Gears of War and Forza Horizon 5 available on PlayStation, and Microsoft Flight Simulator will join them later this year. Indeed, Mr. Small points out: “Between April and July, six of the top 10 best-selling games on Sony’s consoles were Microsoft properties.”
I.e., if you can’t beat them, join them.
“We are all seeking to meet people where they are,” Matt Booty, the president of Xbox game content and studios, told Mr. Small. Even more interesting, he further explained: “Our biggest competition isn’t another console. We are competing more and more with everything from TikTok to movies.”
Lesson #1: your competitors are not necessarily the ones you think they are.
The new version – Halo: Campaign Evolved – is a remake of the original Halo game, first released in 2001. “We wanted to start where it all began, with the original campaign that defined Halo,” Executive Producer Damon Conn explains. It has been remade using Unreal Engine 5 instead of the proprietary Halo game engine that the game had always been built on, marking another shift to outside the Microsoft ecosystem.
Writing in the PlayStation Blog, Brian “ske7ch” Jarrard, Community Director, Halo Studios explains:
What makes Halo special isn’t just the gameplay, it’s who you play it with. Bringing Halo to PlayStation means even more players can share in that experience. In Halo: Campaign Evolved, you can jump into four-player online co-op with friends or kick it old school with two-player couch co-op on your PlayStation- now with cross-play and cross-progression across console and PC.
“We’re so excited about bringing Halo to those who may not have had chance to play it in the past,” Executive Producer Damon Conn said. “At its heart, Halo is about connection, we’re thrilled to meet a new generation of players on their platforms of choice to fall in love with Halo the same way we did. We’re not trying to rewrite Halo’s legacy – we’re trying to immerse you in it like never before.”
“This is Halo for everyone.”
When asked if the next step was a version of Halo (or other games) for Nintendo Switch, Mr. Conn would only coyly repeat: “We’re excited to launch this in 2026 on Xbox, Xbox on PC, Steam, and PlayStation.” But don’t be surprised.
There is, interestingly enough, some controversy about whether the Halo team is using generative AI to help develop the reenvisioned game. The team denies it, but game director Greg Hermann admitted to Alyssa Mercante of Rolling Stone: “It’s a tool in a toolbox. I may go a little off message here, but some of that gets very challenging when we look at how integrated AI is becoming within our tooling. We use Photoshop. There’s generative fill, for example. The boundary lines can get a little fuzzy.”
It reminds me that Microsoft is pursuing a dual strategy not just in gaming platforms but also with AI, having its own AI team and products while also being a major investor in OpenAI and its products.
Lesson #2: Hedge your bets.
Here are my two takes from the above for healthcare:
If your business model relies on a proprietary platform, you may want to think whether that is actually giving you an advantage, or it is just cutting off access to lots of potential new customers. If you are insurer, think about, say, your provider network; if you are a health system, think about, perhaps, your medical record.
If you think of your competitors in traditional terms – e.g., other health systems or other health insurers – you should realize that you are missing the bigger picture. We’re living in an age of misinformation, peddled by people/companies way outside “mainstream medicine,” and more people are listening to them. If you don’t compete against them, you’re going to lose customers.
I’m no more likely to play Halo on PlayStation than I was on Xbox – which is to say, not at all — but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn lessons from it. Hopefully healthcare will as well.
Kim is a former emarketing exec at a major Blues plan, editor of the late & lamented Tincture.io, and now regular THCB contributor
