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foxtail on 11 April 2016
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Mr Puggsly said:
foxtail said:

Bad example though.  Halo was originally intended as a Mac/PC game with no console version named.  The game was even revealed at Macworld 1999, and the Xbox version came about when MS bought Bungie.  The backlash back then was from Mac fans who lost one of their most supportive developers.

Halo 2 was also released ~2½ years later on the PC after the Xbox version.

Nobody was really talking about Halo until it came to Xbox though. Even though PC was the original plan that isn't a guarantee of a PC port. But since it was acquired by a company that makes PC games, it happened.

Mac gamers are a small audience so there was little backlash. It like when Wii U fans complained about cancelled games, few care and more have access to it on other platforms.

 

Nobody was really talking about Halo until it came to Xbox though.

Halo was talked about and people did know about it, even though it was more on the PC/Mac side of gaming.  There was buzz about the game in gaming circles, and that’s one of the main reasons MS bought Bungie.  Bungie also originally planned to have the game release on the same day on the Mac and PC.

Halo was on the cover of a PC magazine in 1999 as “the next big thing”. 

 --> larger image

NVIDIA was using Halo to sell the GeForce 2 on the PC (and Power Macs).  MS may have even chose a variant of the GeForce 3 for the Original Xbox since Halo was already built to take advantage of the GeForce series on Mac and PC.

Halo/Nvidia PC promo trailer

And there was even word that Rockstar wanted to port and publish the game onto the PS2.

I think if someone followed games back then on the internet they would’ve heard or seen something about Halo on the PC/Mac.

 

Even though PC was the original plan that isn't a guarantee of a PC port. 

True, but if the game started as a PC/Mac exclusive then there’s more of an expectation of a port.

 

But since it was acquired by a company that makes PC games, it happened.

But the PC port wasn’t even done by Bungie or another MS owned studio but by Gearbox. 

I think the reason the Mac and PC ports of Halo 1 happened at all was because Bungie wanted to appease original fans or maybe there was some type of contractual obligation.

 

Mac gamers are a small audience so there was little backlash.

Mac gaming wasn't big but Bungie was one of the developers that defined gaming on the Mac.  Think of what Bungie was to Mac gamers, they were to a lesser scale akin to what EAD is to Nintendo or Naughty Dog is to Sony.  It was a big deal to Mac gamers because they lost one of the few developers that tried to always support them first.  

To put it one way, on the Mac there was Myst and Bungie's Marathon Trilogy that helped define games on the Mac platform.  Marathon gave something to Mac gamers that they could be proud of.  Some even say that the FPS Marathon games were the spiritual predecessor to Halo.

  

 

In the end I think MS did what they did to make Halo synonymous with Xbox and the ports were downplayed for a reason. 

As Ed Fries said - "There wouldn't be an Xbox today without Halo. In fact, how can you even put a value on that?"

But Windows is always going to be more important to MS, so who knows how MS will leverage Halo in the near future.