News Microsoft and Bungie to 'evolve relationship'

[CardJoe]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/10...elationship_/1

Evolving their relationship' is just a nice way of saying that Microsoft and Bungie are getting divorced. Allegedly.

[DougEdey]

I'll make a note of that.

"I think it's time our relationship took an evolutionary step"

[Tim S]

Having read the PR, I don't think either company could have said less. Amazing in that respect.

[Flibblebot]

It was the PR equivalent of shouting "Look! Over there!" and then running in the opposite direction.

[ChiperSoft]

Ultimately what this means is that now Bungie will be getting a larger cut of their future earnings, and Bungie will have more creative control. Rather then Bungie being a subsidiary of Microsoft, they're now more of a partner (similar to Sierra's role with all of it's game companies). Microsoft will continue to publish Bungie's games, and Bungie will stay on the xbox because it's the platform they know, but Bungie will now get to decide what games they make, and when they will release them.

This is a very good thing, since a lot of problems Bungie encountered during the Halo trilogy (including mostof Halo 2's faults) could be directly blamed on Microsoft's influence. Both Halo and Halo 2 got pushed out the door before they were ready, and much of Halo 2's flaws were caused by the managerial influence that Microsoft introduced to the company. For Halo 3 they moved into a new building, set it up the way they wanted it, and managed the way they wanted it.

For those who bought the Limited Edition Halo 3, there's a great documentary on the second disk about the life at Bungie Studios.

[Vash-HT]

That would be great, Bungie is one of my favorite companies, but I still like the Myth series better than Halo. I hope they start making RTS's for PC again, that would be awesome.

[cjoyce1980]

microsoft will screw the halo series, people just dont know when to stop, and i'm huge halo fan!

[samkiller42]

Bungie is almost spliiting apart from MS Game studios, but, MS will still publish the games while Bungie make em. Thats fine with me.

Sam

[CoolFox]

I'd like to see Marathon continued >.>

[DXR_13KE]

maybe they will start making games for macs again......

[Duste]

I really hope they don't make a forth game in the Halo series, because it could very well ruin it. Too many games in a series and they start to get rather repetitive and boring.

*cough*EA*cough*

[kickarse]

err... Bungie was it's own company when they were developing Halo original. Then MS bought them and then they released Halo original a year or two later. Now they want to split again? What a dope slap!

[johnnyboy700]

Sounds a bit like their getting a divorce but still carrying on living together and splitting the bills - with a "we can still be friends" lifeline thrown in right at the end. It all depends on who said it first.

[nakchak]

Makes sense to me, just cus ms games is the publishing house doesnt mean that other platform releases arent on the cards.

imagine the PR coup that m$gs would have if they decide to release halo 3 or comparable on the ps3, e.g. m$gs is the source of a reason to buy a PS3. end of the day ive yet to see a PS3 exclusive that even remotely tempts me to consider investing in one, blu ray is not a selling point to me, as i have no intention what so ever to rebuy my dvd collection, and 750mb - 1.5gb rips are fine as far as im concerned.

seeing as bungies prior original ip have all been pretty groundbreaking, im sure that in the last 6 - 8 years or so there have been a lot of ideas and projects put on the back burner cus of master chief and chums, which leads me to think bungie may well be finding them selves in a situation comparable to many bands who all of a sudden arround 3rd album mark come out with side project albums (think slipknot, murder dolls, stone sour, down the sun, and other side projects, which all came out after vol3. had been recorded, but not released). This is usually due to contractual obligations, e.g. produce the 3 albums your contracted for then go hog wild, release what you want with who you want (as long as they are an imprint of the parent label), in bungies case there 3 album deal was the halo trilogy, thats done, the moneys in the bank/orig investment paid off
now its time to let them play

also cus of the 3yr warranty m$ must be having to look for alt revenue streams from its gaming division, so by distancing the business's it should allow bungie the freedom to approach other platforms, whilst maintaining the distribution channel established with m$gs

probably talking crap but, thats my 2p worth

[devdevil85]

Originally Posted by cjoyce1980

if this is remotely true....(most likely started be a sony fanboy/employee......as he just could take a the beating),

I guess all those Sony fanboys were right.....LOL I love ignorant comments like this.....or things like "Bungie will never split from Microsoft" and as you can see it did......honestly it's the games that matter and if this will help make the games better, even though release dates will be longer, it will hopefully be a positive......either way, I don't believe MS hampered Bungie's creativity though....I think that's a lame excuse to put the blame on MS

[Stwongbad]

I would love to leave a woman like this. "Im Sorry _____ but i think we should evolve our relationship"

[devdevil85]

lol