Is Halo the new Star Wars?

Posted By admin On August 7, 2007 @ 3:00 pm In Articles, Xbox | No Comments

5I am generally fascinated by “the secret sauce” that few studios understand of creating Intellectual Property or IP. How to breakthrough the clutter of creativity and make something that really resonates and breaks out into the mass cultural consciousness. Bungie did that with Halo, Blizzard do it with everything they touch! This is a big deal. That is why Microsoft boughtthe Halo IP. It could not create it despite having billions. Secret sauce baby. Only someone else’s mama knows how to make it.Halo 3 what we expected it to do. It broke the record for any entertainment launch in history. Yes boys and girls it brought more in its first day then Return of the Sith on its launch.At stake are billions of dollars from merchandise deals, additional games and additional media content. What Halo needs to do in order to become the next Star Wars is to become a franchise that can bring money in just by the mention of its name. I think the first test will be Halo Wars. While you are staying in the field of games you are moving from the FPS genre to RTS. It’s a big move in a field with the memory of giants like Westwood still casting a pall on it and with current kings Blizzard etc. dominating. This is a good test to see if Halo can become a franchise. Runaway success for Halo Wars means that Halo has juice as a franchise.What really will make a difference is the upcoming Halo movie with Peter Jackson producing. We’d all love it if he was directing ofcourse. But even getting him onboard as Producer is a big deal. He has the access in Hollywood to do this right and has the special effects team in New Zealand which is as good as the Pixar and Lucasfilms/ILM duoopoly that reigns supreme in the US.Halo broke through not only with unlocking the FPS genre for consoles but by creating an incredible lore and universe with great races and characters that truly stand out. The germs are there for a legendary franchise to be created. It is the execution that will decide whether Halo is the next Star Wars or the next Nightmare on Elm Street.

Habib “Noori Nath” Khan