A more than 2 year delay for the first game and never getting the rest of the series is a major downside for existing customers. That’s exactly the kind of monopolist behavior you are supposed to block mergers for. Waiting 2 years cost Microsoft a little revenue directly, but pushed XBox sales which was far more valuable.
Halo would have been a flop if it was Mac exclusive.
Keep in mind, this was back in the year ~2000. Mac market share in the home user market was a rounding error. Schools were full of iMacs, but at home, it was all Windows.
“Due out in the first half of 2000, Halo will have a simultaneous release for PC and Mac, with multiplayer compatibility between the two operating systems. While you'll need a 3D card and a powerful system to take full advantage of the game's features, it'll be scalable so you can play it on less powerful machines.” http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9907/26/halo.idg/
Things got delayed ~18 months so Microsoft could port it to XBox thus waiting till November 2001. Then tacked on another 2 years to release it on Mac.
https://www.halopedia.org/Halo:_Combat_Evolved_for_Macintosh
First Halo was delayed to port it to windows and XBox on top of that two years after its initial release they let the already working Mac version out the door. That’s a huge fuck you by any standard.
On top of this Halo 2 etc was XBox and Windows exclusive fuck PS owners, fuck Mac owners, and fuck the free market.