Microsoft's full-length, Hollywood-style movie based on the next Halo video game will skip the big screen, streaming instead on YouTube before heading to store shelves as a DVD.

The maker of the Xbox console, promoting the November release of Halo 4, has taken the unusual step of creating its own 90-minute movie, at a cost of almost $10 million.

YouTube release ... Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.

Microsoft plans to release weekly instalments of Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn on the web before offering the game and DVD﻿﻿. The film airs starting today in five 15-minute segments on the YouTube channel Machinima Prime, leading up to the game's debut on November 6.

"We're either the best-funded web series of all time, a sort of mid-road healthy TV pilot, or a super-low-budget movie," director Stewart Hendler said.