CamHostage
Member
Father_Brain said:That's a valid criticism, but it's still a long ways away from "he pulled the whole thing out of his ass," like many GAFfers baselessly asserted after the E3 no-show.
In the case of Halo, I don't think he ever suggested that it was more than a concept demo. But I could be wrong.
There's also a third possibility outside of the 'good faith prototype' (but similar) that Nintendo put out offer requests for prototypes related to this franchise to a select number of developers. That happens off and on as well. It similarly means that a game only has a tenuous chance of seeing completion but it's not outright praying for "If you build it, they will come" to be true, it's an actual contract with a small payment involved and future deal terms to be negotiated after prototyping is complete and judged for potential. A developer which prototypes on faith eats the cost if the prototype goes nowhere but they of course can also flip that technology to a new game; a developer which prototypes on contract gets paid for its small amount of work but probably will not own what it produces, assets most assuredly (assuming they're not working with a known franchise in the first place) and technology also possibly not to be retained depending on the deal.