Head of Xbox Phil Spencer explains why there is no split screen in Halo 5
When Halo 5 announced that there would be no split screen multiplayer as all the other games in the series featured, some fans went ballistic. Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox kind of sums it up by saying the "vast majority" of players are connecting to Xbox Live when playing Halo multiplayer rather than local multiplayer."In the end, the teams make decisions based on the bar that they want to hit for complexity of what they're going to run on a single box," he said. "We see the robustness of what Xbox Live is today and where people are playing across Xbox Live--you at your house, me at our house. We know that's the vast majority of the co-op play. With Halo 5, the team really wanted to focus on making that experience great, both visually on the screen that you're looking at, and all the systems in place."
When Halo 5 announced that there would be no split screen multiplayer as all the other games in the series featured, some fans went ballistic. Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox kind of sums it up by saying the “vast majority” of players are connecting to Xbox Live when playing Halo multiplayer rather than local multiplayer.
“In the end, the teams make decisions based on the bar that they want to hit for complexity of what they’re going to run on a single box,” he said. “We see the robustness of what Xbox Live is today and where people are playing across Xbox Live–you at your house, me at our house. We know that’s the vast majority of the co-op play. With Halo 5, the team really wanted to focus on making that experience great, both visually on the screen that you’re looking at, and all the systems in place.”
Spencer says that he loves the split screen multiplayer in the Halo games and claims that is what has made the games as successful as they are today.
“I think the team made a trade-off based on what they see happening in the market today and what they wanted to do with their game,” Spencer explained. “I love the nostalgia of the couch co-op of what Halo did in the past, but I also know in the realities of the day with people’s busy lives, it’s not as easy to get everybody in the same physical place. It’s one of the advantages that Xbox Live obviously offers.”
We will see how this effects Halo 5’s launch on October 27th for Xbox One, if at all. My guess is probably not. For more updates on Halo 5: Guardians, keep it locked to Gamespresso.