Battleangel

Bungie has confirmed that the soon to be completed port of Halo 2 for the PC will only play on Windows Vista. Or “ship exclusively for the Windows Vista platform” as they so surreptitiously put it. Bungie apparently wants to offer the “optimal gameplay experience.” I call bullshit on that as well as on their early rebuttal of the obvious accusation that MS and Bungie are doing this only to push for Vista.

This signifies a new troubling trend. Despite Bungie arrogantly noting that people can just as well “complain to me about what a jerk I am to Windows 3.1 users” this does mark a shift. As I recall, Windows 3.1 was a hybrid 16/32-bit operating environment. As for the pure 32-bit Windows OS world, it has been rare for software not to be compatible with the entire line, and when incompatibility has occurred, the current 32-bit flagship product has usually already been around for quite some time. Usually, incompatibilities have been due to neglected drivers and an OS ageing “naturally.”

Considering what a dismal job Bungie (and Gearbox) did at porting Halo 1 to the PC, one has to wonder what Windows Vista will do for them that XP wont. Will it miraculously turn them into actual programmers? I think not.

Not only is this a foul marketing effort by Microsoft, but as we now know, Vista contains a number of vicious privacy and liberty infringing technologies that obviously have to be pushed on the general public. I foresee that this is only the first in a long line of software suits and games that will abruptly end support for older 32-bit Windows platforms. All for the sake of prodding people into the new order of things.