Can Halo5 Save The Xbox?

Can Halo5 save the Xbox? The career of one of gaming's most powerful women is riding on it.

- Joshua Brustein, photograph by Michael Friberg

The women’s volleyball locker room at the University of Southern California’s 10,000-seat Galen Center isn’t the most glamorous green room, but Bonnie Ross couldn’t care less. It’s June 15, and in 30 minutes, Ross, who’s in charge of Microsoft’s most valuable gaming franchise, will take center stage at the industry’s most important conference, E3. It’s the pitch of her career—a preview of Halo 5: Guardians, set to go on sale on Oct. 27.

Three years in the making, Halo 5 is widely anticipated to be one of the biggest game releases of 2015. Ross, 48, runs 343 Industries, a studio within Microsoft. She manages 600 people and has likely overseen the spending of more than $100 million for Halo 5 alone, which is typical for a release of this size. (Microsoft declines to give an exact figure.) It’s a huge production—and a chance for Microsoft to recoup its investment in Xbox One, which has lagged behind Sony’s PlayStation 4.

The fate of the Xbox has been linked to Halo since both debuted in 2001; Microsoft executives at the time said the platform probably would have failed had Halo not been such a smash years later, Ross still describes the game as a way to how good the Xbox itself is. “Halo is all about innovation and pushing our technology,” she says. “We feel like we’re pushing where we need to be, and pushing Halo.”