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Bungie Hiring PC Developers

Posted by Zonk on Thu Feb 02, 2006 06:30 PM
from the master-chief's-new-digs dept.
XBox (Games) PC Games (Games)
Gamespot reports that Halo-maker Bungie Studios is seeking PC developers for an unnamed project. From the article: "Taken in and of themselves, the listings are merely interesting. However, the wording of the graphics programmer job description has many positively convinced that Bungie is porting Halo 2 to the PC, in-house. 'This is an opportunity to influence the direction of Windows gaming technology in MGS [Microsoft Game Studios],' reads the post after first teasing, 'Want to work on the biggest franchises for Microsoft Game Studios?' Since becoming part of Microsoft Game Studios, Bungie has worked on only one franchise for the division--Halo."
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  • ...they're hiring Windows developers. Otherwise, I'd be expecting a Linux (or Mac, as Halo was originally intended to be developed for) port.
  • maybe they'll actually finish it this time.

  • Unfounded Speculation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TychoCelchuuu (835690) on Thursday February 02 2006, @06:49PM (#14631022) Journal
    This is silly. My bet is that they're hiring PC developers to not only port Halo 2 but also because PC developers are better suited for next gen consoles. Current gen console developers have dealt their whole lives with limits waaaaay under next gen, while PC games are already there. Just like PC companies like Valve hired movie people when they first started working on their high end next gen content (HL2), a developer like Bungie would have an interest in people who are experienced with advanced technology just around the corner.

    • Re:Unfounded Speculation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Valdrax (32670) on Thursday February 02 2006, @07:13PM (#14631184)
      No, actually old school programmers are going to be able to squeeze a lot more power out of the Cell and Xenon architectures and are far better suited to understand the limits of in-order execution and the memory timings involved. They know what coding for the specific hardware means, and they're used to limitations not typically present in a PC.

      Programming for a single-processor, general purpose machine with gobs of slow RAM gives you very little applicable expertise for these multiprocessor or massively parallel SIMD monsters with limited high-speed RAM. Honestly, Cell is NOTHING like a regular PC architecture. You'd be better off with a background in programming Crays than PCs.

      The best thing that PC programming will prepare you for is working with the graphics hardware on both platforms, and even there most people are used to generalizing their code.
      • Well, as I understand it, games are divided up into multiple projects. Thus, they hire PC guys for the parts that are similar to PCs, and hire regular console guys for that lower level stuff.
        • What they are really hiring is one shot programmers, burnout in a studio that only produces one game, when that game fails so does your job. I mean you can count every game that has remained popular and profitable over the life of computers on the fingers of Captain Hooks left hand (they obviously wont be promising any job security), although oddly enough speaking of pirates, they will continue to distribute games long after they have ceased to be profitable for publishers to do the same.

      • Re:Unfounded Speculation (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TheNetAvenger (624455) on Thursday February 02 2006, @08:51PM (#14631733)
        No, actually old school programmers are going to be able to squeeze a lot more power out of the Cell and Xenon architectures and are far better suited to understand the limits of in-order execution and the memory timings involved. They know what coding for the specific hardware means, and they're used to limitations not typically present in a PC.

        Although I completely agree with you, it should be noted that XBox 360 is basically DirectX/XNA development, and a good PC developer that is familiar with DirectX technologies would do well in both environments.

        MS was fairly smart to continue to use the PC metaphor for the consoles, as developers have that level of hardware abstraction that they are getting use to with DirectX and OpenGL for Video.

        Sony has tried to bridge this gap with their technologies as well, but all they are providing is development technologies and not the level of hardware abstract that an underlying OS and DirectX provide.

        It would be easier to take advantage of scaling out the Cells for example, if the basic technology set Sony provides supported traversing more of this than relying on the developer to do it. Bascially letting an OS technology that already knows how to split threads off would be a bonus to the Sony tools to compensate for developers that even don't consider things from a single process perspective.

        But I agree with your argument.

        Even though the XBox 360 is able to recompile PC games to it fairly easily that were developed in DirectX technologies, there will still be all the console issues to deal with, from basic things like a limited memory set, storage constraints, to controls via controllers and load performance with DVD driven loading times - all the little fun stuff that is the gap between consoles and PCs, even if the Console is running a PC OS like the 360.
  • But more importantly, why would they need to hire someone new to do this? Windows DirectX and Xbox DirectX have been converging all along, and they already ported Halo - but if anything, porting Halo 2 should be easier.

  • Nothing coming to the PC (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RoadDoggFL (876257) on Thursday February 02 2006, @08:05PM (#14631503) Homepage
    A little while ago, MS made this huge deal about a thing called XNA. I don't know exactly what it does or how easy it makes game development, but I do know that it was supposed to further bridge the PC-Xbox platform development gap. With Carmack doing most of his development on the 360, a Windows developer would be right at home making a game on the 360, right?

    They're probably hiring people to work on their next game for the 360, I doubt MS would be too thrilled that resources are being spent on a PC title. But then again, I didn't check the link so I could be way off.

  • Actually this is because (Score:5, Funny)

    by snuf23 (182335) on Thursday February 02 2006, @08:23PM (#14631583)
    Bungie is planning an MMO based in the Halo universe. In order to make the game successful, they will need both PC and Xbox 360 clients. The game will be more action based than most MMOs and will take advantage of integrated voice.

    P.S. I'm full of crap
  • The reason for a Halo2 port seems obvous: The goal is to sell more Xbox 360's. So far, there is no killer app for the console. Halo 3 is the obvious current front-runner. But only gamers who own an Xbox or with friends who own an Xbox have been able to play Halo 2. So the excitement is curently limited to customers who are already fans of the Xbox. If Halo 2 is available for the PC, however, then the audience for the game opens up. If the PC version is done well, it can drive more people to the franchise.
  • I would love to work at a game workshop, especially one owned by MS, so I can be layed off after the project is over.
    • the fact that they have a job opening isnt itself newsworthy, but the article explains that: "Taken in and of themselves, the listings are merely interesting. However, the wording of the graphics programmer job description has many positively convinced that Bungie is porting Halo 2 to the PC" thats the interesting part. A possible Halo 2 port to windows will interest a lot of people.

    • Re:cue (Score:4, Insightful)

      by XenoRyet (824514) on Thursday February 02 2006, @07:30PM (#14631297)
      It would be safe to assume that it's a headline in the games section because, despite your disparaging assertions about the Halo 2 audience, it's quite large. A lot of people are indeed curious about things related to Bungie, particularly an in-house port, as the article describes. I imagine not a few people perusing the games section might even like to work at Bungie.

      This is also news to the fairly large group of people that unfortunatly purchased Gearbox's incredibly horrible port of Halo 1. Most of those people would likely breath a large sigh of relife to know that Bungie will do Halo 2 PC in house.

      So, given your inability to parse the relevant information out of that headline and assosiated blurb, I have to wonder why you even care. If gaming news does not interest you, simply block it, don't come in here and troll around as AC.

      • Gearbox's incredibly horrible port of Halo 1

        I liked it.
        • I liked it too. But the fact of the matter is it's terrible. The networking was inefficent. The server-side hit detection was so bad that it led to such a cludge as making it beep when a hit was successful. Can you think of another game that required such a rediculous measure? The game lagged on LAN. CPL matches were won and lost because of rockets not exploding where they should have.

          It was Halo, on PC, and thus fun. But the fact of the matter is that geabox screwed it up in about every way possibl

          • Halo was my first game in a long time. I had not played a game since probably doom2. I thought the story was interesting, interaction was intuitive, the graphics were more than I expected, and the online game play was, well... new to me (except that stupid quake 3, or at least I think that was it, running around in circles all day, jumping off everything, no story at all, ...Lame... It turned me off to games for quite a while)

            Compared to a couple of movie tickets I thought (and still do) it was money w
      • What was wrong with Gearbox's port? Worked fine for me, and it was the best FPS I'd played since Half-Life.

    • I didn't know that Bungie was still around...I have somewhat fond memories of playing Marathon, since it was one of the first games I ever really played on a computer. So this isn't just any gaming company, it's Bungie.
    • Never mind that Halo PC started outselling Doom III at a time when Halo PC had been out for months, and Doom III for weeks. Halo PC was one of the crappiest ports ever, and it still did quite well.
    • Always remember, Bungie has never been in the business of "making Mac games." Their business has always been "Total world Domination." If 'shackling' themselves to the biggest software company on Earth furthers the goal, then so be it.

      For Bungie, "selling out" would be throwing off a Mac port on which they lose money.

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