Ignoring your pedantic condescension we are generally in agreement as to concerning the influence of Halo, but the matter of whether or not Goldeneye established culture of shooters on its own is apparently still troublesome.

Strange how it comes down to whether or not one enjoyed Goldeneye. Yes, I've played it recently. No, it wasn't terrible. In many ways it's still better than Halo, especially in that its an experience intrinsic to the console controller - it's not a PC game, and it can't be replicated on PCs. The ability to aim at any part of the screen without turning the "camera" was one of the best things about the game, and radically changed the shooting dynamic as well as making it easier to play for people who would be disoriented by constantly moving the camera. It was something of an ancient precursor to the way the Wii controls for Metroid Prime would end up working.

No, Goldeneye wasn't crap, and until Halo 2 came out it was bigger than that franchise. It did not result in a bunch of PC shooters coming to consoles, but it was still more important as a proof of concept, and it created a (smaller) shooter culture four years earlier on.

Close enough. We can stop killing this thread now.

For the record, I don't think Halo Wars will do the same for RTS that Halo did for FPS.

I agree, Endwar is an example of a very different way to go about controlling an RTS.  It didn't do very well (AFAIK) but I think it is a signal of things to come - more games with voice control, but also that there can be other previously-not-considered ways to control games like RTS's.  I hoped that Halo Wars would have something like this (not necessarially voice, but a good new idea that made RTS's easier to control on the console) but so far, I'm not so sure that it does.  I'm buying it anyway - but for it to change the perception of what it means to play an RTS with a controller (or, better put, without a mouse) it will need to go beyond the "Halo" name.

Is there any consumer electronics device other than the Wii that uses an IR pointer?  Industry Standard?  Heck, it's probably too patent protected to become an industry standard.

Goldeneye was less of an inspiration then Marathon, which was an earlier Bungie game that is almost exactly the same as halo. Goldeneye would have been looked into due to its huge success but Marathon is the direct inspiration for halo.

Don't believe me? Take a look at these.

heh, Marathon...nice.