Halo, officially known as Halo: Combat Evolved, was released for the Xbox in 2001. It’s regarded as the game that perfected the first-person shooter on the console, after GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 had provided the first successful blueprint four years earlier. Yet things could have turned out very differently.

Originally, Halo was unveiled for the Mac at Macworld Expo in July 1999. Alongside other titles, Halo was set to become a flagship for gaming on the Mac. This was no coincidence: the developer, Bungie had made a name for itself on the Mac in previous years with Marathon and Myth. Gaming on the Mac wasn’t exactly a novelty back then. And so Jason Jones, co-founder of Bungie, presented the first gameplay footage of Halo, complete with Martin O’Donnell’s now-iconic theme tune, on a Mac, specifically, the Power Macintosh G3.

Jones was introduced by Steve Jobs himself, who also announced that Halo would be released “early next year,” (early 2000). But things turned out differently.

Microsoft buys Bungie

At the same time, Microsoft was planning something quite different. In PC gaming, Apple’s direct competitor had long since established itself and was setting its sights on game consoles. Microsoft wanted to shake up that market, which at the time was dominated by Nintendo, Sony (PlayStation) and, to a lesser extent, Sega (Dreamcast). To succeed, the company had to win gamers over to its platform and offer an attractive game library featuring top-class titles at the console’s launch.

The unveiling of Halo at Macworld Expo came at just the right time. On the one hand, the title promised to breathe new life into the first-person shooter genre; on the other, it was backed by a team that, whilst not as large or well-known as id Software (Doom, Quake), nevertheless already had a solid portfolio to its name. So Microsoft bought Bungie, along with Halo, and the game was not released for the Mac and only for the Xbox in late 2001.

Halo: Combat Evolved did eventually come out for the Mac in 2003, but no further Halo installment has since made it onto an Apple platform natively, even though the series was originally intended for it. You can only play all the titles on Apple devices via the cloud, but to do so you’ll need either Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for Xbox Cloud Gaming or GeForce Now. At least that means you can even play Halo on your iPhone.

The best for (almost) everyone

Halo could have given Mac gaming the boost it needed, but Apple’s gaming dilemma is of its own making. One game wouldn’t have made any difference. It would also be presumptuous to believe that Halo alone could have elevated the platform to a relevant level. After all, many other games–some of which were already better known at the time–were announced back in 1999.

Looking back, Microsoft’s acquisition of Bungie was a great success. Microsoft managed to break into the console market and took Sega’s place, whose Dreamcast flop in 2001 also sealed the company’s fate as a hardware manufacturer.

Halo, on the other hand, established itself as the flagship title for first-person shooters on consoles and brought Bungie immense fame and success within the games industry. Following its split from Microsoft in 2007 and a partnership with Activision since 2010, the studio has, as of 2022, been owned by none other than Sony, Microsoft’s biggest rival in the console market.

And Apple? The company hasn’t completely abandoned its gaming ambitions, but the whole endeavor has been languishing for years. Although Apple makes a decent profit in the sector, it does not operate like a traditional gaming company and almost exclusively as a marketing platform, earning its revenue primarily through commissions from the App Store and in-app purchases. The subscription fees for Apple Arcade won’t feature prominently in the balance sheet.

Still, even without Halo, Apple is posting new record profits year after year. On the whole, things have gone quite well for all three parties involved.