Did you know Halo 4 almost had a real-money auction house? Yep, that’s what former Xbox boss Don Mattrick reportedly suggested, stirring up some serious ‘what if’ vibes. This little nugget comes from Dan Callan, a recently laid-off designer from Bungie, who shared the tale on Bluesky. Remember the ‘TV TV TV’ Xbox One days? Mattrick was the face of that era before Phil Spencer took over.
According to Callan, Mattrick thought adding a Diablo 3-style auction house to Halo 4’s campaign was a stellar idea, despite Diablo’s infamous reputation hit from doing the same. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and Halo 4 launched without any such feature. It’s wild to imagine how differently things could have turned out if they’d gone ahead with it! For more on Xbox’s evolution, check out Xbox’s current approach to gaming.
As for Xbox’s current state, the company is undergoing major shifts with recent layoffs impacting studios like Double Fine and Ninja Theory. Meanwhile, State of Decay 3 is seeing changes too. With all these moves, it’ll be interesting to see what comes next for Xbox and its franchises.
Keep an eye out for more industry shakeups, and maybe snag some gaming deals while you’re at it!
Photo by Mahmoud Yahyaoui on Pexels
