Halo: The Prelude to War
The E3 presentation opened with a thunderous announcement—Halo! Subtitled Combat Evolved, this science-fiction first-person shooter contained every element Western gamers craved. The title itself referred to the ring-shaped artificial megastructure in the game, spanning thousands of kilometers in diameter. It was a universe-spanning strategic weapon created by a super-ancient civilization whose scale dwarfed human history, stretching across hundreds of millions of light-years. For reasons lost to time, the civilization that built the Halos had vanished into extinction. What remained was the Covenant, an alien alliance that had inherited only fragments of their technology.
The Covenant was a union of several extraterrestrial races, strangely devoted to carrying out the will of this long-lost civilization. The crisis came when they discovered that the ancients' greatest secrets were hidden on Earth. They launched a full-scale invasion. Though disconnected from the source and possessing only partial knowledge, their power was still overwhelming—their warships alone stretched several kilometers in length.
But Earth was not without hope. The story of Master Chief—a supersoldier encased in iconic green powered armor, destined to save humanity and unravel the ancients' mysteries—was exactly what made Halo so compelling.
“Wow!”
Gilbert shot to his feet with the rest of the VIP section, cheering at the top of his lungs. Having sold TokTok, Gifticon, and NPay to ID Group and becoming an instant billionaire, he was now one of Silicon Valley’s brightest rising stars. Rather than cashing out and disappearing, he had stepped into the role of Chief Technology Officer for ID Technology’s social network division, sharing the same table with Yoo Jae-won. His teammates had received equally generous rewards. After years of relentless work, they were finally enjoying a long break—but Gilbert wouldn’t have missed an event like E3 for anything.
Last year he would have been stuck watching blurry internet streams that looked more like pixelated mosaics than live video, licking his lips in envy. Now he sat proudly in the VIP area, close enough to the stage to drink in every vivid frame and feel the raw energy of the crowd.
Gilbert fell in love with Halo at first sight. It was a perfect strike to his tastes—the kind of game that made you want to sprint onto the stage, snatch a controller, and play it immediately. The moment the colossal ring-shaped structure appeared on the massive screen, his eyes were glued to it. Then came Yoo Jae-won’s live demonstration, and he was completely enchanted.
The lighting was astonishingly realistic. Characters moved as though they truly existed within the game world. These 3D models were acting—their mouths, eyes, and expressions flowing with natural, lifelike subtlety. Even more shocking was the realization that none of it was pre-rendered CGI. Every frame was being rendered in real time by the game engine.
After introducing Halo and demonstrating the first ten minutes of gameplay, Yoo Jae-won paused the game and pressed the eject button. The stage lights dimmed with a heavy thud, followed by a powerful, energetic sound effect. The new opening sequence that appeared belonged to Tekken Tag Tournament HD.
Originally released in arcades in 1998, the game had been ported to Xbox and given the HD designation. It delivered a rock-solid sixty frames per second at 720p resolution. Thanks to the increased fidelity, character models, backgrounds, and destructible objects all featured textures upgraded to high-definition quality.
Namco had already extracted every possible dollar from the arcade version and saw no reason to invest in an HD upgrade themselves. The transformation had only been possible through ID Group’s substantial development funding and technical support. The exact amounts remained sealed under strict nondisclosure agreements. Revealing them would have caused unnecessary controversy—different developers had received different levels of support, and any disclosure risked accusations of favoritism or unfair treatment.
In any case, Namco had received funding comparable to ID Group’s own first-party studios. This allowed Tekken Tag Tournament HD to carry the prestigious Xbox exclusive label. There would have been no point providing such support if the game were also releasing on PlayStation 2.
Interestingly, a version of Tekken Tag Tournament was still coming to PlayStation 2—just not the HD edition. Namco had initially resisted exclusivity, but once the final PlayStation 2 specifications were confirmed, they sided with ID Group. The HD version demanded significant additional processing power for high-resolution textures, dynamic lighting, enhanced shadows, and more. The PlayStation 2 simply couldn’t handle it without noticeable downgrades in resolution, lighting quality, and shadow fidelity. Internal testing suggested that such compromises would generate considerable player backlash.
The arena exploded with cheers. Tekken was already hugely popular in North America. While Virtua Fighter had pioneered 3D fighting games, Tekken had quickly surpassed it. Tekken 3 had been one of the original PlayStation’s biggest killer apps. Although Tekken 4 had been a disappointment, the unexpected success of Tag Tournament had captured worldwide attention.
The online features ran on ID Group servers and would remain free for the first three months. After that, players could purchase a subscription to continue battling online.
The audience shouted answers in a frenzy of excitement. Amid the roaring response, Yoo Jae-won nodded with a satisfied smile that seemed to say, That’s exactly what I’d expect from our fans, and continued.
If Halo represented the next evolution of science-fiction shooters, Doom was the undisputed champion of the genre. Both shared sci-fi settings, yet where Halo felt bright and energetic with its blue tones, Doom embraced deep reds and a heavy, visceral weight. The newly completed Doom 3 had evolved significantly from its predecessors. Rather than leaning into horror, it amplified the pure, unrelenting action roots of the original and pushed them to the extreme. The Doomguy’s destructive power was so overwhelming that the demons on Mars almost seemed pitiful by comparison. Everything that might interrupt the exhilarating flow of combat had been stripped away. Reloading, for instance, became unnecessary—weapons had been redesigned to pour out continuous firepower until their magazines ran dry.
The graphical leap was overwhelming. The same crowd that had gone wild for Tekken now sat in stunned silence, utterly absorbed. Gilbert was no different. His mouth hung open without him realizing it. The grotesque, slimy, writhing creatures and the bizarre fusion of mechanical and demonic forms were nightmarishly realistic. The way Doomguy carved through them felt far more satisfying and fluid than ever before. Gamers were moved to their core—Doom 3 honored the nostalgia they loved while boldly marching into the future.
The moment Yoo Jae-won’s Xbox presentation ended, Ken Kutaragi took the stage for Sony’s PlayStation 2 announcement. Sony’s plan had been simple: no matter what Xbox revealed, they would bury it beneath an overwhelming avalanche of PlayStation 2 titles.
Ken Kutaragi had clung to hope despite the difficulties. The PlayStation 2’s upgraded performance—elevated thanks in no small part to Yoo Jae-won—along with five years of dominant first-party support gave him confidence. An extra three months of development time had also been granted, expanding their launch lineup from a handful of titles to more than ten.
They had hoped the combination of a massive, loyal fanbase and sheer volume could prevent Xbox from gaining any meaningful traction. Once the presentations concluded, however, Sony’s calculations lay in complete ruins. Their expectations had been far too optimistic. The reality was devastating.
The Xbox’s actual performance exceeded the enhanced PlayStation 2 by roughly fifty percent. A locked sixty frames per second at HD resolution? Even Ken had not fully anticipated that level of capability. With few true HD displays available in the market, he had seen no urgent need to push that far. When tested on ordinary CRT televisions, the difference between Xbox and PlayStation 2 had seemed minor. But on E3’s massive screens, the quality gap was glaringly obvious. A creeping sense of crisis settled over Sony—if LCD televisions arrived quickly, the PlayStation 2’s lifespan might end far sooner than planned.
The greater threat was word of mouth. E3 drew hundreds of thousands of attendees whose opinions spread like wildfire across the internet. When core specifications—CPU, GPU, and memory—were compared, the numerical differences were overwhelming. Even Ken Kutaragi’s legendary talent for spin could not overcome cold, hard facts.
To make matters worse, both consoles carried the same $299 price tag. In a direct spec battle, the PlayStation 2 was outclassed. It lacked dual-core architecture, featured a weaker GPU, and had less memory than its rival. Sony was also selling the PlayStation 2 at a loss, but their per-unit deficit was smaller than Xbox’s. The real problem was that even a smaller loss proved far more damaging to Sony because they could not match ID Group’s immense capital strength.
Sony’s once-mighty consumer electronics division was increasingly unprofitable. Their music and film divisions were struggling as well. The only reliable performers in their portfolio were finance and entertainment. Ken Kutaragi’s last remaining hope lay in the diversity of their simultaneous release titles. The PlayStation 2 offered everything from action games to RPGs. Xbox’s lineup, by contrast, was heavily skewed toward action and first-person shooters.
Unfortunately, the weaknesses Ken had identified were already well known to Yoo Jae-won. The reason the simultaneous titles focused so heavily on action was simple: Halo and Doom 3. The world’s most popular genre was FPS, and with Doom 3 leading the charge, that was all anyone needed. Halo—whose every future move would become the stuff of legend—delivered the same crushing impact.
With such a powerful one-two punch, backed by Tekken as the ultimate party game, Yoo Jae-won judged that they had nothing to fear for the coming months. They were also preparing Grand Theft Auto III from Rockstar Games for the Thanksgiving season, a title that would catapult the notoriously violent studio to the very top of the industry.
Originally, Jae-won’s Xbox roadmap had called for a console reveal at E3 followed by retail availability during the Thanksgiving period. That date had been something of a final deadline. Yet every aspect of the Xbox project had progressed more smoothly than expected. As a result, they were able to begin widespread sales at ID Group flagship stores and major electronics retailers worldwide immediately after the E3 presentation.
Had they waited until Thanksgiving, they might have been overshadowed by the PlayStation 2. While not every situation allowed it, seizing the market first was a massive advantage in business.
The decisive factor that allowed Xbox to launch well ahead of schedule was the timely, unhurried completion of both Halo and Doom 3. Jae-won’s expectations for these two titles had been enormous, yet he had never considered pressuring the developers to ship unfinished products for short-term gains. Too many games had been ruined by exactly that mistake.
He had quietly provided funding and technology until the creators themselves were satisfied. The results were shining brilliantly today.
The following day, the Xbox’s ultra-high-spec hardware combined with Halo and Doom 3 began to demonstrate remarkable synergistic power.