G-pinions

"There has been some speculation lately as to when Emergence Day will be. For those snoozing on all things 360, that refers to the launch of Gears of War, the centerpiece of Microsoft's Holiday 2006 onslaught. The few tidbits I've seen have all been pointing to October or November, some as early as September. Since we are still dealing with gaming's summer doldrums and have nothing better to do, I'd like to throw my hat in the ring, and expound upon it a bit.

Emergence Day will be October 10th, 2006.

Here's why:
On November 17th, Sony will, in their words, start the next generation of gaming when they release the Playstation 3. One would sensibly assume that Microsoft's big guns for the fall would somehow hit around that date to try and steal as much of Sony's thunder as they can. Shifting gears for a minute, so to speak, Bungie.net's Weekly Updates have been peppered with talk of the progress of one of the biggest guns in gaming history. That's right, Pimps at Sea! I kid, I kid. Though I'm no game developer, I'm impressed at how far along Halo 3 seems to be. There have been multiplayer tests running since early summer; one update even talks about testing campaign missions and integrating the User Interface. Add all of this to the steam engine that starting rolling last year when Bill Gates told Time magazine that Halo 3 would launch day and date with the PS3. Does this mean that Halo 3 really comes out this fall instead of next year? No, of course not, it's announced for "2007" now.

Back to Gears. Gears launches in early October to give it plenty of time to sell even more 360s, and gives gamers plenty of time to fall in love with it - leading up to November 17th, when Sony does indeed launch the PS3 directly into a Halo 3 hype machine after all. November 17th will be the same day that Microsoft drops a one-level multiplayer demo of Halo 3 on the Xbox Live Marketplace. While there is no reason to believe that this will impact the sales of PS3 at launch in any way, it could add quite a few fence-sitters to the 360 installed base (not to mention skyrocket the number of Xbox Live Gold subscribers). And then there's this situation: You've just stood in an obscenely long line for several hours, shelled out at least $500 for a shiny new PS3 (probably quite a bit more for a game or two as well), and head home to brush your 360 off of its perch of dominance next to the TV. Or do you? If a Halo 3 multiplayer map is taunting you from the depths of the Marketplace while the PS3 is still in its box, which do you play? To be certain, not everybody will have both systems that night, and certainly not everyone that does will be a Halo fan. But I would be willing to bet that the overwhelming number of gamers that will face this problem will do exactly what I would: wake up the next afternoon on my couch with a 360 controller wedged under my back and a Sony superbox collecting dust on the floor. In such a scenario, Sony's shiny new, Live-killing, music-downloading, "FREE" online service gets a freshman's welcome from the sixth year senior, paddlin' style. To top it all off, think of the headlines in the maintstream media and how pissed Sony suits would be to be sharing them with Microsoft.

The way I see it, we get plenty of time to enjoy Gears, Gates gets to keep his promise, and Microsoft gets to ride the Halo hype for six months to a year, easily. And to anyone who doubts the power of a one-map multiplayer demo, go and check the current Live charts. Halo 2 by quite a margin, coming up on two years now. Again, back to Gears. The earlier link about the potential release date of Gears talks about a tie-in with Megadeth heading Gigantour, which will apparently be sponsored by Microsoft. Here's what I think the timetable looks like:

The tour starts September 7th. I say the same day, a Gears demo of some kind (almost certainly the same mulitplayer map from E3) pops up on the Marketplace. Anyone attending Gigantour will be able to get their hands on the game at the show itself too. The tour ends on Sunday, October 8th. With few exceptions, games hit on either Tuesday or Wednesday, which brings me to October 10th as Emergence Day. So, when does Halo 3 come out, you ask? Well, there's the more likely answer, and then there's what I would do if I were in charge (and the game were ready). The first two Halos arrived in early November. Given that it's the holiday season, this seems the most likely time to drop the big one, where it would sell the most hardware. But, if I ran the big "M", Halo 3 would arrive on store shelves in late March of 2007. Seems insane, I know, but let me get all this out before you stop reading. In addition to being the end of a fiscal quarter for Microsoft (boosting both that quarter's numbers as well as the next), March is slowly but surely becoming the new November. The last one brought us Oblivion, GRAW, and Kingdom Hearts 2. The one before that saw God of War and Chaos Theory - clearly no longer a dumping ground. On top of all of that comes this question: Do you really think that Halo 3 would sell one less copy in March than it would in November [Ed. Note: relative to install base, I'm sure he means]? It has the benefit of being a member of a very rare crop of games that will break sales records regardless of when its launch day is.

So Microsoft gets a system-seller in March, conveniently around the time that PS3s could be in good supply, and a game that will continue to sell systems well into next year's summer dead zone. Plus, getting Halo 3 out the door means that Bungie's next title could be revealed at E3 2007, slated for a Fall 2008 release. I've got to think a "from the creators of Halo" stamp on the front of the box is worth a million units [Ed. Note: Stubbs the Zombie sold a million units?]. If Microsoft knew all this in November and were able to give a release date only six months away from the demo release date, how many more fence-sitters would put PS3 on hold in favor of a 360? This also lets Microsoft focus on some of its other First Party offerings - a fall launch for Mass Effect might give them even more time to polish, or Too Human plenty of time to fix that camera. And let us not forget what might have been the biggest announcement nobody cared about from E3: GTA IV launching on both systems on the same day removes the biggest contributor to PS2s remarkable installed base in the west, making the playing field almost even. Except for that pesky Halo 3.

Of course, I take no responsibility for being wrong, but I will take all of the credit when I am right."

Thanks, Greg!