While Crysis is considered by many to be the pinnacle of PC shooters, at least in terms of visual performance, a number of gamers would argue that Bungie's Halo franchise set the standard for first-person shooters on consoles when it first arrived on Xbox back in 2001. With Crytek bringing Crysis 2 to Xbox 360 and PS3 later this year, publisher Electronic Arts is confident it can dethrone Halo in the realm of console shooters. That's quite a statement since Halo: Reach is launching later this year too and will be in direct competition with other shooters like Crysis 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Speaking as part of an in-depth IndustryGamers interview, EA Games label president Frank Gibeau stated outright that his group has been planning to build a "Halo killer" for some time. "...we were trying to craft a Halo-killer, you know a product that would squarely go after what Bungie built with our partners at Crytek. So the Crysis 2 product is spectacular, very high-end, and is going to be a multi-year franchise," he said.
Responding to a question about whether EA approached Bungie before Activision locked them up for 10 years, Gibeau noted that EA Games is already very well stacked in the shooter department. "...so at some point in the portfolio plan you’ve got, when you look at Crytek, DICE, Epic, the LA team building MoH, and then Respawn, you know we got a pretty damn killer team. There’s not a lot of opening positions left on that roster and so that was definitely something that played into how we’ve looked at opportunities out there. But, we’re going for it and I‘ve gotten to know the Bungie guys over the years and they’re a terrific bunch of people, but we’re very pleased and confident with what we got and the franchises in our portfolio," he said.
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/crysis-2-will-be-a-halo-killer-says-ea/
