http://www.oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=12905

Microsoft never planned for Halo to become its flagship title, according to Microsoft VP of game publishing Ed Fries.

"We didn't know what was going be our biggest title," Fries admits. "There was a lot of negativity around Halo, actually, mostly coming from the games press. We showed it several times publicly, and we got pretty negative feedback."

Somebody did what they called a 'color palette analysis,' and they brought me this report where they showed me that [Halo's colors], compared to typical console game colors... their assertion was that we were using all the wrong colors in the game."

Fries says that the question within Microsoft was whether Xbox owners would want to play a hardcore PC-style FPS.

"Obviously, once we launched Xbox, the game started selling like crazy and became iconic for the platform," Fries says. "But all that happened after the fact, after a lot of naysayers said it wouldn't, or couldn't."



Silly gaming press

I wonder what else they would have used as the mascot.

@Carl2991: They probably wanted to be like Sony, where they don't have 'a' mascot, but a lot of relatively successful franchises. They would have had a varied lineup, including Halo, Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Project Gotham Racing, Panzer Dragoon, etc.

Not sure I agree with the thread and article titles. Doesn't agree at all with the content. It should say, Microsoft didn't know and didn't think Halo would be a flagship title.

Well it's a great thing they picked Halo as there flagship title.

Yes, really really misleading headline. It gives a negative impression while in fact it's the other way around, MS were happily surprised by the success.

same thing that happen to killzone 2.
i got sexy =).

well what matters is that they did

It just happened really.
Mind you Gears has to be a close second.

Well, I sure am glad it worked out this way.