Bill Gates On Launch of Halo 3

Even the world's top bosses say things in interviews without actually meaning it.

Companies say things in interviews all the time that aren't necessarily true, believe it or not. The problem is that, if you're talking about Halo 3, an awful lot of fans are going to end up confused about what's happening with the next instalment of the beloved Xbox franchise.

Last year Bill gates commented in an interview with TIME magazine that Halo 3 would be there right at the launch of PlayStation 3 to hold back the competition. An interesting strategy, given that Xbox's own executives have always considered that such flagship games should be allowed as much development time as needed to get things just right.

Kikizo jumped straight into action at the time, asking Microsoft's Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach, what happened to the previous philosophy? "Whatever we do with the Halo franchise - and certainly the Bungie guys are managing the process - whatever we do will come when it's ready."

Similarly, when Kikizo asked Xbox's charismatic J Allard, he echoed, "if hypothetically we were going to make Halo games in the future, we want to give the Bungie team the amount of time they need to create the product they envision. It worked with Halo 1 and Halo 2 - and anything the Bungie team does from here, we want to apply the same formula."

But still, some fans reckon that Bill gates knows best, and that later this year could still see a PlayStation 3 versus Halo 3 mega-battle. Now, the Microsoft Chairman himself has laid the theory to rest, and backtracked on his own comments from last year, telling technology site Engadget that his previous comments were speculation, and that "it's up to the team when they want to ship it... they're going to take their time to make that a super great product."

Gates was just speaking hypothetically, from a strategic point of view last year - and it now seems clear that Halo 3 will come out when it comes out. But then, it might still be a PS3 launch rival! Who knows?

Kikizo Staff