Bungie Has Left Microsoft

[killman360]

Bungie has just announced that they've "reached an unprecedented and exciting agreement" that they'll "branch off" from the Microsoft Game Studios mothership and become Bungie, LLC, an independent company, starting ... today (well, technically October 1, but effective immediately)! Worried about Halo going to another, less competent developer? No need, the studio will retain a long-term publishing agreement with Microsoft Game Studios for Halo titles. Other titles? All they're saying is that they "will continue to develop with [their] primary focus on Microsoft's platforms." With Microsoft holding a minority equity interest in the company, that's not surprising.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft is also retaining ownership of the Halo property (MGS chief Shane Kim calls it "our Halo entertainment property") as well as reserving first crack at publishing any Bungie-developed IP. We're left wondering if Marathon counts as a Halo property or a Bungie property ...

What are the immediate repercussions of this division? According to Bungie, "Practically speaking, nothing has changed and you guys won't see much, if any difference, for a while ...." We hope it means that somehow they'll be able to bring the same level of skill to a project besides Halo.

 

[Jesusdragon737]

Wow. This is really, really old news But yeah, Bungee split with Microsoft a while ago and everybody was talking about how nice it would be to have Halo on the Wii, but that would never happen because Microsoft owns Halo.

 

[gamelover15]

haha, I feel old for not know this x.x

Even if Wii doesn't even have a chance to get Halo on it, Bungie can always start another franchise or improve a current one (Geist looked promising). That could be possible.

 

[Zamms]

Microsoft doesnt OWN Halo they just have a 10 year contract to not make a Halo game for another system. I think Bungie should bring back Oni and put it out on the wii. That would be amazing

 

[killman360]

This is old news?! Then magazine publishers must be a little slow when it come's to actually getting news out......:thumbdown:

 

[Dana~Banana]

at least halo will not go to the playstation..............good news for xbox fan i guess