[Harkoliar]

Microsoft has announced that one of the top billing Xbox games, Halo 2, will soon be coming to a PC near you - as long as it is running on the new Vista operating system due out later this year. Halo 2 is a "first-person" combat game which follows the battles of the Master Chief against the Covenant forces. It is one of the gaming categories regularly fought out at the annual Cyber Games championships held last year in Singapore and is popular in Australian gaming tournaments. A PC version of the original Halo was released in 2003 but until now the Halo 2 title has only been available on Xbox. In partnership with Bungie Studios, Microsoft plans to make it available only on the pending version of its operating system, Vista, which is not expected to ship until late 2006. Microsoft has given no date for the PC release of Halo 2, but some recent media reports speculate that the two might be released simultaneously to encourage the uptake of the new Windows platform. Microsoft said the PC version of Halo 2 would allow both single-player and multiplayer use and include the additional maps offered in the Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack. Halo 2 is currently the most popular multiplayer game on Microsoft's online platform, Xbox Live and the company said the Halo franchise had sold more than 14.5 million games worldwide. PC games made up about 28 per cent of the games shipped in Australia last year according to market research group GFK. But many serious gamers prefer consoles which they can modify to boost performance. The latest Xbox shipped late last year in the US and is due in Australia on March 23. The release of Sony's PlayStation 3 also expected this year.

link: smh.com.au