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Comment by steele | Hacker News Reader

Netflix saturating the landscape with poorly executed adaptations of Microsoft owned media properties is almost certainly not worth the short term dollars for long-term erosion of their perceived value, especially without some certainty of securing complementary title launches. Given the shuttering of studios to right-size for the cambrian explosion of slop for COVID era hardware, Xbox probably wouldn't be able to make that capital work for them any better than sitting on licences until they accrue nostalgia.

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Halo could be (peak) Game of Thrones level in the right hands, which means the right execs, producers and investors just as much as it does creatives.

Unfortunately, the right hands potentially no longer exist. The current generation seems largely unable to produce good things, with few exceptions (notably Andor)

GOT is hot naked sexy people and swords. I feel like Halo isnt that, at all.

I think Halo could successfully get the Andor treatment (intentional departure from the tone and scope of mainline entries) in the right hands, but so could pretty much anything, and such hands are hard to find.

The majority of GOT isn't hot naked sexy people or swords: it's conversations in rooms. Most good shows are conversations in rooms, which is why it's so surprising we've lost the ability to produce and write them.

Babylon 5 demonstrated that you can keep absolutely everything else crappy (effects, costumes, heck acting and even cinematography), so long as you're good at conversations in rooms.

I don't think you understand the appeal of Halo if you think it can be about people talking in rooms. Halo would have to be something far more complex, like Band of Brothers.

Exactly: it would have to be like Band of Brothers, or like Space: Above and Beyond from the 90s, but with a 2027 budget and effects. Or screw the effects: just good 2027 talking-in-rooms writing is nearly enough.

The Halo universe offers a lot to mine from, just like the Star Wars Universe did for Andor. It's just waiting for the chosen one writer to be allowed to do the job. Who's the J. Michael Straczynski or Tony Gilroy for the Halo universe?

Anything could be game of thrones (early seasons) if it well written. You don't really need any Halo rights if you have good writers and can make a good show. The point of having Halo rights is they let you produce a mid show but have an automatic audience.

It seems that way, but it's not that easy. Starcraft competitions are still on tv in South Korea 28 years later because they got the balance just right, and all the dirty little details of that universe.

In theory you can make any sci fi show about future humans and a couple other species going to war. Should be straightforward.

But getting the balance of that universe right in terms of little details is tricky: Halo has done the heavy lifting already.

> Starcraft competitions are still on tv in South Korea 28 years later because they got the balance just right, and all the dirty little details of that universe.

Are they? I thought after the pro league failed it's transition to SC2 and the GSL ended that it mostly went to streaming platforms.

Can you explain the comparison of sports with fictional narrative?

Halo and Starcraft are both about the Terrans going to war with alien species.

Same old story, right?

But getting the balance of technologies, motivations (e.g. jihad-dynamics), and nitty-gritty details (e.g. the splinter factions) right is the trick: it's much easier to do wrong than to do right.

Red vs Blue is pretty great

Their game adaptations are actually pretty good though.

The only one I can think of is Arcane season 1. What are you thinking of?

Castlevania and Cyberpunk are great. Devil May Cry is fun.

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