NEWS - Thursday, April 12, 2007
Half-Life 2 Arriving in September?
Speaking to IGN, the pair have revealed that September is currently the targeted drop date - cue excitement! Whilst both have reiterated Valve's intention to ship the game this year in the interview, there is also a chance that plans for a simultaneous multiplatform release could be nixed. Stating "If some are ready, we're gonna go," Marketing Director Lombardi has us dreaming of a another timed exclusive. And although neither Lombardi nor Walker offered any official confirmation that Microsoft’s machine would be first past the release line, but there are points that swing the vote favorably towards the Xbox 360. Firstly the fact that both console ports are being migrated direct from the original PC version, with Xbox 360 duties once again being handled internally by Valve at its Bellevue Studio, is a plus. Considering the team responsible for Team Fortress 2 have also worked on the original Xbox conversion of Half-Life 2, the familiarity with Microsoft’s console architecture suggests an easier (and quicker) conversion cycle. Couple this with the fact that PS3 development is being out-sourced to a UK branch of Half-Life publishers Electronic Arts, and our chances are improving. Commenting on the PS3 dev team, Lombardi stated that they; “don't have all the networking stuff in yet to do anything other than… rending and running the games and whatnot… they're still dropping in the network layers.” And although these statements are attributed to Team Fortress 2 specifically, its safe to assume H-L2 isn't going anywhere without its massively anticipated multiplayer cousin! So September then? Definitely maybe... "September is entirely self-adopted. If it finally came to September and we thought the game sucked we wouldn't ship it. We've held it long enough." chimed Walker, with Lombardi eager to add "We don't have a solid date yet."Source: http://www.oxm.co.uk
