I know Xbox is currently amid the biggest restructuring in its history, and yes, it all sucks, even if it's probably a necessary change for the company's future. Instead, though, I want to take you back to days gone by, when the infamous Don Mattrick was at the helm.

By all accounts, Mattrick inherited a golden goose in the Xbox 360, only to smash it into a million pieces with the disastrous reveal of the Xbox One. That moment all but erased the goodwill Xbox had built throughout the Xbox 360 era, effectively handed the entire console generation to PlayStation, and created problems the brand is arguably still dealing with today.

Over on BlueSky, former Halo 4 developer Don Callan spoke out about a meeting that was held between 343 Industries at the time and Don Mattrick. Callan recalls it as follows:

“I have very distinct memories of having to demo Halo 4 for Don Mattrick and realizing that these people just live on different planes of reality... I was showing off my mission and when the Mantis showed up... he raised his hand and said to the group, 'Has anyone here played... Diablo 3?'... He then went on to suggest we should copy their idea of a real money auction house for campaign mech skins…”

Callan went on to explain that while everyone around Mattrick outwardly reacted as though it was a brilliant idea, they privately thought it was beyond stupid, especially considering Halo 4 was already around 90% complete. He ultimately summed up his experience by saying, "game execs remain stupid detached money grubbing idiots."

I must admit, as much as I dislike Halo 4 and its gameplay loop (don't worry, I enjoyed the campaign), this really would have been a baffling decision, and one I'm glad never became reality. It's also worth remembering that Diablo 3's real-money auction house was widely criticized at launch and was eventually removed from the game.

Hopefully, Xbox's new leadership has more sense than whatever Mattrick was thinking at the time. With the company still in the middle of a major restructuring, tensions are understandably high both inside Xbox and among fans watching from the outside. But let me know your thoughts. Would Halo 4 have been even worse with a real-money auction house? Leave a comment below and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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One of this year's biggest new games for Microsoft and Xbox is Halo: Campaign Evolved — a full-fledged remake of the first game, 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved, that features new gameplay additions, expanded replayability, and an Unreal Engine 5-powered graphical makeover.

It's headed to Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5 late next month, with Xbox confirming its long-rumored release date of July 28 during the Xbox Games Showcase. Notably, you can jump in on July 23, five days early, if you purchase the Premium Edition; I imagine that's incentivized many players to preorder, leading to the game climbing the Steam sales chart.

Now that the Halo remake is just over a month away from its full launch, something PC players in particular have been wanting to know is what the game's system requirements and recommended specs are.

Thankfully, they've now been announced by Xbox and developer Halo Studios, and I've included them in the below image and table for your convenience:

All in all, for an Unreal Engine 5 title that's aiming to deliver peak visual fidelity, Halo: Campaign Evolved's CPU, GPU, and VRAM requirements aren't too bad at all. Targeting a 1440p / 4K resolution with 60 FPS and Medium or High settings can be done with hardware that's five to six years old, which is likely what many gaming rigs are equipped with.

The memory and storage requirements, though, are a bit harsher. Demanding 16GB of memory for the lower quality levels at 1080p and 1440p is fine — most players have that much — but the requirement for 32GB if you want to push higher is a little debilitating, especially during the ongoing RAM crisis.

Campaign Evolved requires a steep 100GB of SSD space, too, which is quite a lot for a campaign-only FPS game. You'll need to uninstall a game or two if your gaming hard drive doesn't have triple-digit room available.

Something worth noting is that it's unclear if these requirements were determined with or without performance-enhancing technologies like Super Resolution and Frame Generation factored in. What we do know, though, is that Campaign Evolved supports their use, alongside things like NVIDIA Reflex and other anti-latency tools. These will make taking advantage of the game's uncapped framerate easier.

Ultimately, the 100GB requirement aside? I'd say it sounds like the Halo remake has been optimized fairly well, and should run well on most PCs with optimal settings chosen. I can't say that for sure until the game is out, though.

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