Could the Xbox One's biggest exclusive yet ever make it onto PC?
According to the game's franchise director, there's "plenty of chance" that it could - but there's a minor caveat.
Status update
Frank O'Connor has been part of the Halo franchise for over a decade, and worked on one of its precursors, Marathon 2, another ten years before that.
He's been in the senior role of Franchise Development Director since 2010, for series retrospective and remastering effort Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, for Halo 4, Halo: Spartan Assault, Halo: Spartan Strike, and now October 27th's very well anticipated Halo 5: Guardians.
So when someone like that says there's "plenty of chance" that the Xbox-centric series' latest entry will come to Windows PCs, people take notice.
Asked whether there was "any chance Halo 5 will ever come to the PC" (at 1h13m03s on the GamesRadar Twitch stream), he first established a context.
Microsoft and Xbox overlap
"Microsoft has made a huge commitment to try and normalize the Windows experience across all platforms," he replied. "Elements of Windows 10 are going to appear in the Xbox with [AI assistant] Cortana and stuff like that."
And that overlap can be extended to gaming pursuits.
"There's plenty of chance that Halo 5 could appear on the PC. Nothing to announce at this point, but it's absolutely not [outside] the bounds of reason."
Thanks to how close Windows PCs are to the Xbox One (and, for accuracy, the PlayStation 4), "it wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world to move [Halo 5] to PC and take advantage of PC stuff."
It's not hard to imagine something like Halo being used to push Microsoft's own Windows Store with exclusive distribution - shutting out other digital retail platforms like Steam or Amazon - and in fact that's already happened to some degree with timed exclusives on Halo: Spartan Assault and its sequel.
But here's the caveat to quell immediate excitement on a more widely available Halo 5: "Nothing to announce today, on this chat."
Past precedent
Should Halo 5 eventually make it over to Windows PC, whenever that happens, it'll be at least the sixth franchise entry to do so.
Though the series is generally presented as an Xbox exclusive, on whatever console is the current generation, in addition to the recent Halo: Spartan games there's been the original Halo: Combat Evolved on Mac and PC, Halo 2 on PC, and soon Halo Wars 2, which has been announced for late 2016 on Windows 10 as well as Xbox One.
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