So it's the old "if you love something, set it free" thing huh? lol

Never heard of that before. got any links for it?

Chris Butcher commented, "For Halo 2 we had our sights set very high on networking. ... Going from having no Internet multiplayer to developing a completely new online model was a big challenge to tackle all at once, and as a result we had to leave a lot of things undone in order to meet the ship date commitment that we made to our fans."^[31] With only a year to go until release, Bungie went into the "mother of all crunches" in order to finish the game;^[32] in a 2007 interview, Jamie Griesemer, one of Halo's design leads, said that this lack of a "polish" period near the end of the development cycle was the main reason for Halo 2's shortcomings.^[33] Butcher retrospectively described Halo 2's multiplayer mode as "a pale shadow of what it could and should have been if we had gotten the timing of our schedule right";^[33] the campaign mode's abrupt cliffhanger ending also resulted from the frenzy to ship on time.

@ prayformojo. Seriously man. Cant anyone praise Microsoft here ever? Does it hurt that much?

Microsoft did not rush bungie. Bungie made a date for halo 2. During development they wanted to add loads more to online. But they realised they were cutting things fine. Microsoft had nothing to do with their last few months rush. Bungie had to many ideas. Ideas that went into halo 3.

Microsoft do like timelines. Its a business to. Money isn't limtless. But halo 2 was not microsofts fault. Bungie cornered themselves. They promised their fans early on with a release date. They left it to late to change it. To add i. What they wanted would have been another year on top.

even your link says nothing about Microsoft. But that they didn't want to let their fans down.

Doesn't say anything about MS forcing anything. Sounds more like they set a date for release that they told their fans (customers) that it would release and although they wanted to add more (which game dev doesn't want to add more? they always do) they couldn't, but they still tried their best ato cram as much as they can in there.

Devs are artists and like all artists, art is done when it's done. You honestly think it was Bungie's call to release a game with a completely different ending? Really? lol. They didn't have a say, obviously, or else it wouldn't have happened. Plenty of devs promise things, and then it gets pushed back due to polish etc. Look at GT5 for example.

MS wanted that game out, and Bungie HAD to deliever it.

Some devs choose to let their fans down by missing release dates. yes i agree. Bungie instead choose to meet their release date and get as much done as possible. While what they do may be considered art, i think most devs rather think of themselves as employees of a company, and if as a company Bungie decides to release on time that is their choice. They released one of the definitive console(heck ever) FPS of all time, I think they are dam happy with that, and their checks they got, and could really care less about being artists. I know I would be. And again, he never mentions MS only Bungie and what they choose. Dont put words in his mouth. If he felt MS caused the presure he wouldn't use words like we and our decisoins, but instead be blaming MS, which he didn't do. But, haters gonna hate I guess.

What on earth are you talking about?  You made that up, didn't you?  Braid, World of Goo, and Machinarium are some of the most successful indie games of all time.  That's hilarious.

Anyway, this argument will go nowhere, as usual.  Some people will insult and degrade anyone who doesn't praise Microsoft.  It's sickening.  They'll also misunderstand the point on purpose, which is not about Xbox at the START of the generation but rather Xbox from the middle onward.

From 2D Boy's famous article in 2011:

It's an excellent and fair evaluation by someone who knows what the fuck he's talking about.  He's not bashing Microsoft, he was just saying they need to stop resting on their laurals because they've been passed by.  I bet you anything that Microsoft has read this.  Look at his second suggestion for improvement: "Make every console a dev kit. Windows and Mac, by their nature, have always been that way. Apple and Google have done a good job of it with iPhone and Android. It may require a lot of work, but there is nothing stopping Microsoft from doing this as well."

http://2dboy.com/2011/10/03/xbla/

Those of you with an open mind might want to give it a read.  Those of you who are angry that anyone would dare criticize Microsoft ... well, who cares.  Microsoft themselves ignored you and decided to improve their processes.

Well aside from the fact that 2dboy has no games published on XBLA, I fail to see how that blog post magically overrides positive feedback like the OP post. As for insulting and degrading angry responses, please read your own post with an open mind.