Jason Gardner considers the impact of Microsoft's gaming smash Halo

Jason Gardner

Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117. Not quite as catchy a moniker as say, James Bond, Lara Croft or Jason Bourne but that hasn't stopped this particular genetically enhanced super soldier from establishing his own brand of world domination. For Master Chief, as his friends call him, is the central hero, nay legend, of the Halo series of video games.

Halo is a first person shooter, or FPS if you want the lingo, that pits the armies of a future earth against a conglomerate of alien species known as 'The Covenant.' And if that wasn't quite enough of a challenge for you, players also have to fend off a marauding parasitic life form known as The Flood before it consumes every organism in the known universe. Just like an average day in the office then.

Such a gargantuan task has kept many a would be Master Chief glued to their gamepads way past their bedtimes. And it's not only Halo's hero who's become a legend, the game itself is a phenomenon in the world of computer consoles.

The trilogy has sold over 20 million copies, and when the last installment, Halo 3, appeared on the shelves late September it sold over $170 million worth in the first 24 hours. And on it's way to the top of the charts the epic space battle has garnered many a fan including Brian Michael Bendis, famed comic book writer and author of ultimate spider-man, who has said that Halo's pop culture importance rivals that of Star Wars. No wonder then that Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame is rumored to be making the game to movie adaptation.

Master chief isn't just the fictional hero who saves mankind he's also the reason Microsoft has a stake in the video game console business at all. If Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships then Halo's hero is the cyber soldier who launched 1.25 million X boxes in the UK alone. Not that Mr Gates needed the money but the superior combination of gameplay, story and its success as a multiplayer online game secured another 'arm' for the monopoly octopus that is Microsoft, earning it a place as part of today's holy trinity of game production alongside Sony and Nintendo.

The software giant is more than aware of the potential that video games have as earners. That's why they bought up the company that originally created Halo, Bungie Studios, back in 2000. That's why they also shelled out $10 million in simply promoting Halo 3, that's roughly one third of what it cost to produce the game. As the numbers bear out, it's money well spent. The gaming industry is currently worth $7 billion in revenue a year - which now exceeds the amount films make at the box office. And that figure is predicted to rise to $15 billion by 2009.

So could we see the entertainment world come to be dominated by games not film? Very possibly, the production costs to profit ratio is far greater on games than on films, Spider-man 3 cost around $250 million and took $150 million at the box office in it's opening weekend, Halo 3 cost around $40 million to make and as mentioned above, took over $170 million in the first day of sales.

And things are only going to get better as far as computer game technology is concerned. Better graphics, better stories better game play and an increasing level of interactivity and interconnectivity means that gaming is set to be an increasingly staple feature of life whether you're at home, at work or on the move. The future, then, no longer looks bright, or indeed orange, but resembles rather the matt battle green armour of a space commando named Spartan.