Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that there will be two new ways to get into the Halo3 Multiplayer Beta coming Spring of 2007...
One was something to do with playing Halo 2 which is pretty straight forward. The second way was to buy Crackdown which has caused a lot of confusion as to exactly how this will work.
Microsoft has made clarifications as to what’s going on with the Crackdown Halo 3 invites. First of all not every Crackdown will include an invite according to the official statement. Only specially marked Crackdown packages will include an invite. To further confirm this, Gamestop right now has an offer than if you pre-order Crackdown through them, you will get the package with the invite. If you don’t want to pre-order, you should be able to tell which ones on the shelf have the invite or not, the announcement indicates there will be some labeling, sticker or other marking to indicate which ones have invites.
We're curious to see how fast these specially marked Crackdown packages disappear off store shelves only to find themselves on eBay for $100 once they’re all sold out. Microsoft hasn’t said what the ratio of packages with invites and no invites will be, but the beta is a limited beta so I would expect less than 25 percent will have invites.
From Microsoft’s official press release : “The “Halo 3” multiplayer beta, which is a pre-release version of the multiplayer experience of “Halo 3,” is scheduled for availability in spring 2007 exclusively on Xbox 360™. The beta also represents an opportunity for gamers to participate in the testing and refinement of the multiplayer gameplay of “Halo 3,” the most anticipated game of 2007. Through the resulting feedback, Bungie Studios will be able to further hone the end result of “Halo 3.”
When “Crackdown” hits store shelves, gamers eager to take home a copy of the highly anticipated exclusive action title for Xbox 360 will find marked boxes of “Crackdown” that include an invite to participate in the coveted “Halo 3” multiplayer beta program when it becomes available. When the “Halo 3” multiplayer beta surfaces in spring 2007, owners of “Crackdown” with access to an Xbox 360 or an Xbox 360 Core System with hard drive and a valid Xbox Live Gold subscription simply need to load their copy of “Crackdown” into Xbox 360 and use the disc as a key to download the beta from Xbox Live Marketplace and join the battle in “Halo 3” multiplayer.”
I think this is a great idea, not so much using a demo of a highly anticipated game to sell a lesser game, but getting the fans involved in the beta testing. We saw something similar with the release of a multiplayer demo of Lost Planet which helped Capcom fix a number of bugs in the game they had missed to that point. This should become standard practice, release a multiplayer demo for the fans to break first before you release your game. I don’t think there was a single multiplayer title released in 2006 that worked 100 percent out of the box. That is truly a pathetic statement to the quality of multiplayer games we’re getting. Developers need to get a clue that testing their game in-house on the testing Live network doesn’t being to simulate getting it in the hands of gamers and on the real production Live network. Keep the pre-release multiplayer demo’s coming, we’ll all be only too happy to help you find problems so they’re fixed and we get a solid multiplayer experience for our $60.
Microsoft has made clarifications as to what’s going on with the Crackdown Halo 3 invites. First of all not every Crackdown will include an invite according to the official statement. Only specially marked Crackdown packages will include an invite. To further confirm this, Gamestop right now has an offer than if you pre-order Crackdown through them, you will get the package with the invite. If you don’t want to pre-order, you should be able to tell which ones on the shelf have the invite or not, the announcement indicates there will be some labeling, sticker or other marking to indicate which ones have invites.
We're curious to see how fast these specially marked Crackdown packages disappear off store shelves only to find themselves on eBay for $100 once they’re all sold out. Microsoft hasn’t said what the ratio of packages with invites and no invites will be, but the beta is a limited beta so I would expect less than 25 percent will have invites.
From Microsoft’s official press release : “The “Halo 3” multiplayer beta, which is a pre-release version of the multiplayer experience of “Halo 3,” is scheduled for availability in spring 2007 exclusively on Xbox 360™. The beta also represents an opportunity for gamers to participate in the testing and refinement of the multiplayer gameplay of “Halo 3,” the most anticipated game of 2007. Through the resulting feedback, Bungie Studios will be able to further hone the end result of “Halo 3.”
When “Crackdown” hits store shelves, gamers eager to take home a copy of the highly anticipated exclusive action title for Xbox 360 will find marked boxes of “Crackdown” that include an invite to participate in the coveted “Halo 3” multiplayer beta program when it becomes available. When the “Halo 3” multiplayer beta surfaces in spring 2007, owners of “Crackdown” with access to an Xbox 360 or an Xbox 360 Core System with hard drive and a valid Xbox Live Gold subscription simply need to load their copy of “Crackdown” into Xbox 360 and use the disc as a key to download the beta from Xbox Live Marketplace and join the battle in “Halo 3” multiplayer.”
I think this is a great idea, not so much using a demo of a highly anticipated game to sell a lesser game, but getting the fans involved in the beta testing. We saw something similar with the release of a multiplayer demo of Lost Planet which helped Capcom fix a number of bugs in the game they had missed to that point. This should become standard practice, release a multiplayer demo for the fans to break first before you release your game. I don’t think there was a single multiplayer title released in 2006 that worked 100 percent out of the box. That is truly a pathetic statement to the quality of multiplayer games we’re getting. Developers need to get a clue that testing their game in-house on the testing Live network doesn’t being to simulate getting it in the hands of gamers and on the real production Live network. Keep the pre-release multiplayer demo’s coming, we’ll all be only too happy to help you find problems so they’re fixed and we get a solid multiplayer experience for our $60.