This is a partial repost of an article on stuff.co.nz with Phil Spencer of Microsoft:

THE RIGHT HALO AT THE RIGHT TIME

Last year, Xbox 360 owners got to play the first Halo not made by Bungie Studios, the well-received Halo 4 from Microsoft’s new 343 Studios. That wasn’t always the plan.

“A couple of years ago we had the discussion of: ‘Should we do Halo at launch and not do Halo 4 last year?’” Spencer recalled, “But I was committed to getting Halo 4 done last year, and there was no way we were going to turn around with 343 a full Halo game in a year. So that was the plan we set on. I feel good about that.”

The Xbox One will soon get a port of Halo: Spartan Assault, the top-down action game released earlier this year for Windows 8 and Surface tablets. But that’s not a big Halo game. It’s not the huge new Halo teased at E3.

“Unlike some franchises that manage through 1000 people, Halo is 343 and that team obviously has tight control,” Spencer said.

“They are our Halo team. A discussion around having a Halo game at launch – a true Halo at launch, meaning like a Halo 4 or 5-size game – would have been something we’d have had to start two or three years ago.

“We had the discussion, and we thought having Halo 4 come out when it came out from 343 and having them really land their first full version of Halo that they developed internally would be great for the 360 customers, great for 343 in shipping something.”

The Xbox One isn’t backwards compatible to the Xbox 360, but a game like Halo 4 seems like it could have life on the Xbox One. Spencer said that doing a port wasn’t something he wanted for launch.

“I want launch to be about new things that are taking full advantage of the hardware, especially as a first party. Any kind of strategy with the back catalogue was something I thought we would think about later.”

I wondered how hard it even is to do a port of an Xbox 360 game to Xbox One.

“It’s not difficult,” Spencer said, pointing out that Microsoft was developing some cross-platform expertise by making games like the new Zoo Tycoon and next year’s Max and the Cursed Brotherhood for both Xbox One and Xbox 360.

“Whether that’s a port or just dual development, you get a sense of what it means to move games between the two platforms,” Spencer said.

“It’s not just ‘recompile,’ but obviously our controller is very similar, we know our codebase, we’re on a certain number of engines that we’re porting in different directions, so it’s definitely possible to do things like that.”

For the full article (that doesn’t contain any other Halo stuff, but more on XBOX One), go HERE.

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HFFL: So it sounds to me that Phil Spencer did NOT have faith in 343 to turn around a Halo game quick, meaning Halo 4 last year, then Halo 5 this year. So they are using Spartan Assault as a buffer between main games. Do note, that he specifically calls it Halo 5.

Also note that it is possible even “not difficult” to bring 360 games to the XBOX One.

Hmm, I’m still of the mind that Halo 4 should have been release THIS year to coincide with the launch of XBOX One. An extra year of development would have been great. A beta might have happened then as well as a lot of the features that were left out may have been put in.

Regardless, that didn’t happen, so we Halo fans will have to make do with Halo 4, then Spartan Assault, until the next major title comes out. I for one am really looking forward to playing Spartan Assault!

-Sal