Apple's Steve Jobs introduces Bungie's Jason Jones at the MacWorld Expo in New York in 1999 to demonstrate Bungie's next game: Halo, running in real time, in OpenGL, on a Macintosh. A year later and Bungie's Halo title would be transformed by Microsoft's acquisition of the formerly-independent developer into a launch title for the Xbox console, launching the franchise that propelled the company into the #2 spot in console gaming across ten years and two hardware generations, first narrowly edging out Nintendo in its hard-luck GameCube years, and then soundly trouncing industry-leading Sony with a year's head start over the expensive, difficult-to-develop-for PlayStation 3.

And it all started then, in New York, on the Mac.

Thanks for this particular recording goes to GranitW who also provided annotations.

There are other versions of this trailer that are much higher quality as they are direct feeds from the demo; there are also shakeycam versions of the event that include the crowd reaction. I think those are even more impressive because you can hear the crowd gasp when the Spartan moves into the open, revealing the water and the Warthog, and again when the reflections on the surface of the Ghost are shown.

While Halo certainly did not ship in early 2000 on the Mac, as Jobs said it would, it is interesting to note how many art assets appear so close to their final forms even though the game itself would change radically in the next 2.5 years. Warthogs, Ghosts, and Banshees all appear here in very recognizable forms. The map room is recognizable in concept if not in details. Most altered are the Spartan and Elite models, as well as the Halo interior and exterior textures.

Also in near-final form is the iconic Halo theme by Marty O'Donnell which provides the backbone for this demo.