Rumour: Halo Infinite Outsourcing Has Caused 'Significant Headaches'

Welp, my excitement for this game just went from 100 to 0 real quick...

Like I always said to much for 343 poor studio.
They should have been left to only work on Halo infinite and get used to the new engine etc.
As an example when Santa Monica worked on God of war, it looks like they had to work on that only. Single player and one console sort of PS4 and Pro. And look at the end result, very good overall.
343 have been far to stretched. And someone at Microsoft needs to release that and manage the studio and projects correctly.

They should have done what the PS5 is doing and made it strictly for Series X... Oh well to late to do anything about it now..

Fancy managing your biggest IP and one of your biggest studios the way Microsoft have done, it’s a Head of Department disgrace.
Hope they manage over IP and studios better.

Fault is on Phil and his crew, 343 ultimately reports to him and he either was out of the loop (not doing his job) or was ok with what he saw which I don't believe he was. I support MS letting the studios remain independent and all that but you still need to check in. Especially with your main IP for the console and all marketing. I expect some new blood in at 343 to head the team as it's a massive blunder, these issues clearly didn't begin with covid. Anyways...in pumped to play this once it's actually a finished product. I'll have lots of time to play all previous Halo games to catch up on the lore.

Yikes, definitely sounds like a lot of things going wrong in succession. Hopefully they can right the ship and put out a great product!

@Krzzystuff I heard Phil made the final call to delay the game, otherwise they would have released the game in parts.

It’s simple, Phil needs to micro manage 343 for a while and Halo.
That’s what I have to do sometimes at work.
And if he is as good at his job, he will get the right result.

@Z3u5000 yeah Phil said it on the animals talking show but if Phil was actually getting updates and checking in on the game they wouldn't have shown that footage and delayed the game before the show. He actually should have been assigning resources to the project years ago really and we shouldn't have ever been here. Again flagship launch title with all marketing tied to it. They kept talking it up how it's going to blow us away when we see it...he couldn't have possibly been talking about what we saw right? He's a gamer from what everyone says. Yes 343 has clearly dropped the ball but Phil and the team should have been aware of what's going on there and never let it see the light of day. At least now "Craig" can get put into the game as a quest or something. A playable character in multiplayer perhaps? With all his textureless glory?

This definitely worries me, but I am just going to hold out and hope that the final product delivers on its promise. Only time will tell, and I hope this game gets the extra development time it needs.

It seems like 343 are getting worse not better. After a decent Halo 4 it just looks like a company in turmoil.
If I was Microsoft I'd can the company altogether and give another developer a chance to make a Halo game. Its clear 343 games are just not capable of managing the Halo franchise....

As long as the game is great when it is finished, then 👍🏻.

But it sounds like they have too many irons in the fire, so to speak. Building a new engine from scratch takes forever. And screw the TV show. Just let 343 make a great game! Not to mention the work 343 has to put into the MCC on PC recently. And, of course, Covid-19.

Tv series? Someone needs to cancel that already! Not only is it an unnecessary distraction, but it has more potential to harm the IP than it has to help it.

Cancel that show!!!

Everyone here blaming MS and Phil and not mentioning that the head of 343i is a corporate vice present of Xbox Game Studios.

Or that 343i has its own franchise development manger.

Or that both of these people have been in their positions longer than Phil himself and despite a decade of incompetence.

@Richnj Phil's head of Xbox right? Phil's been the one on all the interviews telling us how great the game looks and feels and how we will be blown away right? I expect leadership changes at 343 but Phil's got a big part in this as well. Again it's their main flagship title tied to all marketing. This delay is such a massive failure from a business perspective. Phil was saying a week before the presentation that he's seen the show and it looks fantastic. Not all his fault but he's the captain of the ship, should have done better with this.

@Krzzystuff "not all his fault"

But on this forum, he's getting all the blame. And yeah, it's a massive failure from a business perspective, and like I said, 343i has people who directly manage the studio, who directly manage the franchise. These people outsourced the development, and they did so because that's exactly how they built every other title they've produced, since Halo 4, since before Phil took over.

This is the first Halo Phil has messed up, but it's like the 5th that 343i and its managers have messed up.

@Olliemar28 i agree. You don't need a new studio to take over, just new leadership at 343i.

@Richnj but he does have to take a big chunk of the blame. He's either not checking in on th flagship game which is a failure on his part or he saw it and hoped it would be fixed... failure on his part. That's the annoying part, he's been so positive and infections with the hype and then you saw what they had. It really looks like they didn't see any issues with what they had until the community backlash.... explain that to me in a way that it's not a large part Phil's fault and I'll beat up the underlings all day.

Mismanagement and leadership failure example #2345873 at Microsoft.

@Krzzystuff First, you explain to me where I said Phil held no blame.

@Richnj maybe I misunderstood, sounded like you weren't happy with Phil taking heat on this

@Menchi I'm new to Xbox so I'm hoping this isn't the norm... going forward at least

I think Microsoft and Bungie need to make up and have them work on Halo again, because clearly Destiny isn’t working out so well for them...

@Krzzystuff I'm just not happy with him taking 'all' the heat. Especially when others have failed this game as well. And like I said, these others have done bad without Phil. So we could remove Phil, but Halo won't improve until the others are gone too.

The fact that the creative director left last year because others were interfering is just not a good sign. Much of Infinite looks good, the CD clearly had a vision for the game, undermining him was just not smart.

@Krzzystuff I’ll skip what I was going to say. If it’s anyone’s job to micromanage 343I, it’s Matt’s before Phil’s and so and so. That how corporate structure works.

@Krzzystuff Do you really think Phil is actually man managing every person and thing that is happening in every studio they have? They have what? 16 studios and 343 industries alone has 450 staff. But damit Phil why are you not in there on site watching everything that's being done by everyone! There are levels of management in a corporation this size for a reason....... It's not his job to design, create, code and build everything. That's on the studio and their management. They would have had a deadline to get the trailer sent in by, so Phil and his management team could review and sign off. Maybe the deadline was missed and it was either show this or nothing. He might have been better not showing it and starting the show off with an announcement saying it was being delayed. Due to the amount of hype that had been built up he probably thought showing something was better than nothing. Blame him for showing the trailer, but blame the studio for the state of the game/trailer.

@Krzzystuff

Don’t listen to @Menchi He’s being dramatic. 🙄

Xbox is just fine.

Jesus......so many whiners all the time in these comment sections.

They delayed Halo for a reason. It’ll get the time it needs. People need to relax. We have a billion games to play these days. Go enjoy something else until the game is finished & ready to launch.

@KelticDevil are you whining about the "whiners"?

@MedaXbot

Nope. I’m hitting the “ignore” button. 👍🏻

No more whining, let's hope they take the time they need to get it right and apply their learnings from this mess to all projects going forward. The lineup down the road looks very promising especially with that avowed game.

@KelticDevil Ignoring criticism and failings of the company is exactly how they got to thiis point they are in now. Almost poetic.

@Menchi

“Failings of the company”?

Halo 4 was great, in my opinion. The MCC is fricking awesome & the best “collection” of games this side of Rare Replay. And Halo 5’s campaign was meh, in my opinion. But millions absolutely love the multiplayer.

Sony delays their 1st party games all the time. Their developers have had to go through awful “crunch” periods which should not be allowed. And Sony’s games don’t even bother with multiplayer, so they are all “one and done” games. But does Sony catch flack for any of this? Of course not.

But if Microsoft & 343 delay Halo to give them time to properly finish the game in a pandemic, people lose their minds. It is what it is. Just play something else until it is ready.