W/hen Halo was released in 2001, it was an immediate success. It sold 6M copies and ignited the spark for a $6B franchise. But even more remarkable than the game’s reception was its role in kickstarting the Xbox.

Bundled together with the console as a launch title, many credit the popularity of Halo for swaying consumers away from established home consoles like the PlayStation 2 & Sega Dreamcast toward the unproven Microsoft product from Bill Gates.

The resounding success of Halo and the Xbox (and by extention, Bill Gates & Microsoft), both separately and as a package deal, left the two inextricably linked.

So when I came across this video of Steve Jobs introducing Halo at MacWorld 1999, I was dumbfounded.

The first thing I Googled, I’m embarrassed to admit, was “Did Apple have a stake in Xbox?”

I got 350M results (boy do we take the internet for granted, huh?).

Nada.

Then exactly what the fuck was Steve Jobs, the Kobe Bryant of tech^* doing hawking products for a major competitor?

^{*In terms of competitiveness, not in regards to being extremely overrated}

When You Assume, You Make an Ass Out of You and (M)_aster Chi(e)_f

Halo was never supposed to be an Xbox game.

Bungie, the studio behind the game, had found success developing a series of shooters for the Mac throughout the ‘90s. Their Marathon trilogy, which remains a cult favorite, is considered some of the greatest Mac games from the era.

And the studio was about to come up with their biggest hit yet. According to Kotaku, Halo began as a strategy-style game developed in secret before altering course to become an innovative third-person shooter, featuring advanced graphics at a scale never seen before.

Planning on Bungie’s continued relationship with Apple, Jobs was clearly eccstatic at the potential for Halo to bring Mac to the forefront of gaming.

A Betrayal

By the turn of the millenia, Bungie was the leading Mac game developer during a crucial time in the gaming industry fraught with competition and new entrants.

Speaking of new entrants, Mr. Gates and his little company called Microsoft, which I’m told was run out of a garage, decided that it was high time to come out with their own home console.

Despite the vast resources and tech capabilities boasted my Microsoft, this product launch would prove an immense marketing challenge. Their brand carried no weight in the industry, they were years behind market leaders like Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, and they lacked a value proposition to differentiate themselves to consumers.

As is common practice with video game console releases, Microsoft needed a launch title to entice consumers to take a chance on the new console. Instead of developing a game in-house or comissioning a studio themselves, Microsoft opted to simply buy the best thing on the market: Halo.

In 2000, Microsoft acquired Bungie for between $20M-$40M, securing the exclusive rights to Halo for the Xbox, and pissing off Steve Jobs in the process.

The moment Jobs heard the news, he went ballistic.

Halo was adapted to the specs of the Xbox, evolving from a third-person action game to a first-person shooter. In November 2001, it was released as the debut game for the Xbox.

The unveiling took place at 2001 CES with Gates and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — just two cool guys in tech hanging out, chilling.

It didn’t take long for the game to acquire the moniker of Xbox’s “Killer App” as it became apparent the product was largely responsible for driving sales of the console. The Xbox sold a record-breaking 1.5M units in barely two months, powered by the 1M sales of Halo recorded by April 2002.

Over 20 years and $6B in franchise revenue later, Halo is now one of the highest grossing media franchises (let alone video game) in the world.