Halo, Heresy and Healthcare – The Healthcare Blog

By KIM BELLARD

If you’re of a certain age – like mine, a baby boomer – you may have missed last week’s announcement that Microsoft was releasing a new version of Halo on Sony’s PlayStation console. So what, could you have said? If, on the other hand, you are one of the three-quarters of Americans who play video games, you may have understood their importance more immediately.

The gaming industry is like the porn industry in that it tends to be at the forefront of technology. Since I don’t follow the porn industry, I try to observe the video game industry to see what trends it might suggest for the future of other industries, particularly healthcare.

In case you don’t know, Halo is a Microsoft game and has always been played on Microsoft’s Xbox console. Sony’s PlayStation is Microsoft’s biggest competitor and has won the war hands down. Making Halo available on PlayStation is therefore a somewhat surprising decision. As Zachary Small wrote in The New York Times: “It’s the equivalent of Disney letting Mickey Mouse roam Universal Studios.”

Or, as Grant St. Clair marveled in Boing Boing:

I can’t stress how important this is, but chances are you already know it yourself. Halo It’s undoubtedly the biggest Xbox IP and, historically, one of the console’s biggest draws. It would be like if Nintendo suddenly put Super Mario Galaxy on Steam. This is a tacit admission that Xbox has lost the hardware war – the writing was already on the wall, sure, but this italics and underlines it.

One player told BBC Newsbeat that the announcement was “massive” and “broke the internet a bit”. She’s happy with the news, adding: “I know there’s a bit of controversy about it coming to PlayStation, but I don’t see any reason why it should be like that. I just think it’s a win for all gamers.”

So whether you realize it or not, this is a big deal.

Microsoft is desperately trying to stay relevant in gaming. A few years ago, Microsoft paid $70 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard, and a few years before that, it paid $7.5 billion for ZeniMax Media. Yet as Joost van Dreunen, a market analyst and professor at New York University, told Mr. Small: “When it comes to consoles, Xbox has always been the bridesmaid and never the bride. They just haven’t been able to outsmart PlayStation and Nintendo.”

Maybe he found a way. Earlier this year, Microsoft made Gears of War and Forza Horizon 5 available on PlayStation, and Microsoft Flight Simulator will join them later this year. Indeed, Mr. Small emphasizes: “Between April and July, six of the 10 best-selling games on Sony consoles were Microsoft properties. »

In other words, if you can’t beat them, join them.

“We’re all about meeting people where they are,” Matt Booty, president of Xbox content and game studios, told Mr. Small. More interestingly, he explained: “Our biggest competitor isn’t another console. We’re increasingly competing with everything from TikTok to movies.”

Lesson #1: Your competitors are not necessarily who you think they are.

The new version – Halo: Campaign Evolved – is a remake of the original Halo game, first released in 2001. “We wanted to start where it all began, with the original campaign that defined Halo,” says executive producer Damon Conn. It was remade using Unreal Engine 5 instead of the proprietary Halo game engine that the game had always been built on, marking another shift outside of the Microsoft ecosystem.

Write in the PlayStation BlogBrian “ske7ch” Jarrard, Director of Community at Halo Studios, explains:

What makes Halo special isn’t just the gameplay, it’s also who you play it with. By bringing Halo to PlayStation, even more players can share in this experience. In Halo: Campaign Evolved, you can engage in four-player online co-op with friends or go old school with two-player co-op on your PlayStation – now with cross-play and cross-progression on console and PC.

“We’re excited to bring Halo to those who may not have had the chance to play it in the past,” said executive producer Damon Conn. “At its core, Halo is about connection, we’re excited to meet a new generation of gamers on the platforms of their choice who will fall in love with Halo the same way we did. We’re not trying to rewrite the legacy of Halo – we’re trying to immerse you in it like never before.”

“It’s Halo for everyone.”

When asked if the next step was a version of Halo (or other games) for Nintendo Switch, Mr. Conn only coyly repeated: “We’re excited to launch this in 2026 on Xbox, Xbox on PC, Steam and PlayStation.” But don’t be surprised.

Interestingly, there is some controversy over whether the Halo team is using generative AI to help develop the redesigned game. The team denies it, but game director Greg Hermann admitted to Alyssa Mercante rolling stone: “It’s a tool in a toolbox. I can stray a little from the message here, but part of it becomes very difficult when we look at how much AI is integrated into our tools. We use Photoshop. There’s generative fill, for example. The dividing lines can get a little blurry.”

This reminds me that Microsoft is pursuing a dual strategy not only in gaming platforms but also in AI, having its own AI team and products, while also being a major investor in OpenAI and its products.

Lesson #2: Hedge your bets.

Here are my two views above for healthcare:

• If your business model relies on a proprietary platform, you may want to consider whether this actually gives you an advantage or whether it simply cuts off your access to many potential new customers. If you are an insurer, think, for example, of your network of service providers; If you’re a health system, maybe think about your medical record.
• If you view your competitors in traditional terms – for example, other health systems or other health insurers – you must realize that you are not seeing the whole picture. We live in an age of misinformation, peddled by people/companies far outside of “mainstream medicine”, and more and more people are listening to them. If you don’t compete with them, you will lose customers.

I’m no more likely to play Halo on PlayStation than on Xbox – which is to say not at all – but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn from it. Hopefully health care will too.

Kim is a former e-marketing manager at a major blues plan, editor-in-chief of the late and much-missed Tincture.ioand now a regular THCB contributor