I was on the fence about getting an XBO any time soon. I already have a Wii U and PS4, which take care of nearly all my current-gen gaming needs. Really, Halo is the only thing that's keeping my remotely interested in the Xbox brand. Sure, there's some other interesting-looking exclusives, but nothing that was going to convince me to buy the system at its current price. Even the $400 Kinect-less SKU is still kind of pricy for a system that I would probably only ever get a couple of games for. It was going to come down to either if A) Halo 5 looked like a big enough improvement over H4 to buy day one, or B) if it got its price down to $350 or less.

But one thing I've been wanting for years is the ability to play Halo 1 on XBL. I don't really get to play LANs anymore. It's been several years since my last one. H1PC has never been an option for me, either, and XBC was always unplayable for me. Really, my only hope to play Halo 1 MP on any kind of regular basis would be if 343I re-released Halo 1 with online MP over XBL. Those hopes were dashed when HCEA was released in 2011, but now against all odds we're finally getting it. To me, that alone is enough justification to go buy an XBO sooner rather than much later. While I'm kinda bummed that Halo 2 isn't having anything done to fix its most broken aspects — I'm not looking forward to dealing with superbouncing, BXR-ing assholes in MM, so I'll think I'll stick to customs — having Halo 1 MP on XBL for the first time ever more than makes up for it.