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XBox (Games)

Official - Bungie Departing Microsoft 266

Posted by Zonk from the holy-cats dept.
jasoncart writes "Microsoft today confirmed the news that has been speculated for some days, that Halo developer Bungie is 'on the path' to becoming an independent company. Microsoft describes this as an 'evolution' of their relationship, but no concrete reason is given for this move. 'Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, said the company was "supporting Bungie's desire to return to its independent roots". However, he added, Microsoft "will continue to invest in our Halo entertainment property with Bungie and other partners, such as Peter Jackson, on a new interactive series set in the Halo universe". "We look forward to great success with Bungie as our long-term relationship continues to evolve through Halo-related titles and new IP created by Bungie," he added.'" MTV wonders out loud ... if Bungie doesn't make Halo 4 who will? The official press release from Bungie gives you the same information from the other side, as does an interview with Frankie at GameDailyBiz. Update: 10/05 21:25 GMT by Z : In the wake of the announcement Kotaku has a quickie email interview discussing the future of the company.
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Official - Bungie Departing Microsoft

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  • Huh? (Score:2)

    by Otter ( 3800 )
    MTV wonders out loud ... if Bungie doesn't make Halo 4 who will?

    Isn't that kind of a moot point, since they *are* going to be continuing the Halo series?

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EricR86 ( 1144023 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @11:42AM (#20868497)
      Personally, I would love to see Bungie (finally) create a non-Halo title. They make good games, it'd be nice to see a good game that isn't a moderate evolution of a previous one. Enough with the sequels.

      And If I was a game developer working on the same title for years on end - I'd probably want a change too.

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

        by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @11:57AM (#20868747)

        And If I was a game developer working on the same title for years on end - I'd probably want a change too.
        Not so with Microsoft; they know how to milk a cash cow when they find one. Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the real money from the game is made. Halo: the T-shirt, Halo: the coloring book, Halo: the lunch box, Halo: the breakfast cereal, Halo: the flamethrower--the kids love this one--last but not least, Halo: the doll. *squeeze* "Gimme mah money, bitch!"

        • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

          by peragrin ( 659227 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @12:01PM (#20868819)
          I take it you really want Spaceballs: The search for more money to finally be released.

        • Not so with Microsoft; they know how to milk a cash cow when they find one. Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the real money from the game is made.

          Wow, you've just summed up Disneys entire business model. :-P

          Cheers
        • Actually, quite the opposite, Microsoft has been very careful about image with respect to Halo. They have had ideas from all over to tie into the game, from toy guns to lingerie link [neoseeker.com]. But with such a huge player base it is better to be careful and conservative about image and keep the merchandising limited. Profit off of a few key items instead of being a merchandising whore.

        • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)

          by kestasjk ( 933987 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @09:05PM (#20875651) Homepage

          And If I was a game developer working on the same title for years on end - I'd probably want a change too.
          Not so with Microsoft; they know how to milk a cash cow when they find one. Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the real money from the game is made. Halo: the T-shirt, Halo: the coloring book, Halo: the lunch box, Halo: the breakfast cereal, Halo: the flamethrower--the kids love this one--last but not least, Halo: the doll. *squeeze* "Gimme mah money, bitch!"
          Yup, the last thing we need is more crappy merchandise from Microsoft. I remember Vista the movie, Visual Studio.NET party balloons, Microsoft Office action figures; those guys just don't know when to stop.

          The problem is that selling crappy merchandise is so much more lucrative than the billion dollar expanding software market.

      • I like them. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by SanityInAnarchy ( 655584 )
        I don't mean another game that's called Halo, and is set in exactly the same storyline.

        More like one set in the same universe. It's my understanding that basically every shooter they've ever put out, including the Marathon games, is set in the same universe. Maybe even the shooter/rpg before that... what was it called?

        But imagine being a Marathon fan leading up to the launch of the original Halo. Cortana actually sent out emails to various fan sites ahead of time, so people were analyzing all the ways in wh

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bobartig ( 61456 )
          I want to see Oni II with 1) Non-impossible end-game content, and 2) multiplayer support.

          Of course, the Oni franchise was transferred to G.O.D., and has henceforth disappeared off the face of the earth.
        • Set in the same universe? Not exactly. Their first shooter release was the Shooter/Adventure hybrid Pathways into Darkness. There were never any direct references to occurences in PiD in the Marathon series, but there are some common references (name of one alien race mentioned only in the pregame story in PiD also appears in Marathon, nature of another foreign entity in PiD is very similar to one mentioned in Marathon...). For all intents and purposes, there is nothing contradictory to state that they

          • Time period and technology posessed by humans in Halo are completely out of whack with what the Marathon story and backstory would imply. Technology behind AI's is entirely different. Technology behind cyborgs is entirely different...

            Well, let's see...

            Time period is different. But it's my understanding that in Halo, cyborgs have generally been outlawed, which is why they did the Spartan program -- they can't _quite_ make him cyborg, but they can genetically engineer him and give him all kinds of toys.

            AI

      • Personally, I would love to see Bungie (finally) create a non-Halo title. They make good games, it'd be nice to see a good game that isn't a moderate evolution of a previous one. Enough with the sequels.

        If you've played any of Bungie's older titles you'll know that they've got a history of turning out good games. The Marathon series was fantastic, and while Myth was never my cup of tea it was very popular at the time. Even Oni was decent. It'll be good to see Bungie get back to their independent roots...

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Glendale2x ( 210533 )
          I wouldn't mind seeing them make Halo into what they wanted it to be before Microsoft picked them up and it got retooled into a console shooter. I was hoping for more Marathon mythos... and I got "just shoot everything to get to the next level".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vought ( 160908 )

        I would love to see Bungie (finally) create a non-Halo title.
        Personally, I liked the Marathon series and Pathways to Darkness. You know, the non-Halo tiutles Bungie developed in the 1990s.

        Marathon 2 was probably the best.
      • Finally? They have created plenty of non-Halo titles. The Myth series, the Marathon series (best storyline ever, if you're into that kind of thing), Pathways into Darkness...

        And what's with this acting like Bungie becoming separate from Microsoft is something new? They *were* and independent studio before Microsoft hired them to make Halo exclusive for the Xbox. Otherwise, maybe we would have seen some modern chapters to Marathon without being dumbed down. They've made games worlds better than the Halo seri

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Evangelion ( 2145 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @11:44AM (#20868535) Homepage

      Just because they own the IP and made the first few games, does not mean that they have to make all the games in perpituity.

      For example, Id Software, despite providing the engine and making Quake 1-3, did not develop Quake 4 -- it developed by Raven Software.

      • bungie didnt make myth 3 either, so they are already used to passing the torch on game franchises.

        me? id love to see oni 2. that game was hecka fun.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Otter ( 3800 )
        Just because they own the IP and made the first few games, does not mean that they have to make all the games in perpituity.

        Sure, but the MTV link is speculating about what would happen if they gave up the IP, which was reasonable speculation but isn't what happened. It seemed odd to bring it up *after* the details of the Bungie deal came out.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by dabraun ( 626287 )

          Just because they own the IP and made the first few games, does not mean that they have to make all the games in perpituity.

          Sure, but the MTV link is speculating about what would happen if they gave up the IP, which was reasonable speculation but isn't what happened. It seemed odd to bring it up *after* the details of the Bungie deal came out.

          Actually, Microsoft is keeping the IP, not Bungie:

          "Microsoft will retain an equity interest in Bungie, at the same time continuing its long-standing publishing agree

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Daetrin ( 576516 )
            "Microsoft will retain an equity interest in Bungie, at the same time continuing its long-standing publishing agreement between Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie for the Microsoft-owned "Halo" intellectual property as well as other future properties developed by Bungie."

            My understanding is that Microsoft has "first refusal" on the publishing rights for anything Bungie makes in the future. But Bungie will be able to work on whatever they want. Which means they could decide to make their next game for the W

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by EricR86 ( 1144023 )
      Personally I'd love to see them develop a non-Halo title. Bungee makes great games, it'd be nice to see their creative talents leaned in a different direction. Enough with the sequels. And I can imagine if I was a game developer working with the same series for years on end (since 1999?), I'd probably want a change too. If they develop a non-Halo title, for PC, I'd be one of the first to try it.
    • Last time I checked there was no Halo 4, Halo Wars is being developed, and that looks great (though I still don't know if they plan to port it to PC) but Bungie has a tradition of sorts of ending their games after the second sequel and moving on, I don't see them making a Halo 4. Microsoft might try something like that with a different group but it would never do as well as Halo 3 without Bungie (unless it magically because awesome :P).

      I really, really doubt there'll be a Halo 4. Much more likely to have Ha

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Gaerek ( 1088311 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @12:16PM (#20869121)
        No Halo 4? You mean, $170 Million in the FIRST day of sales isn't enough incentive to make Halo 4? I'm sorry, but there's way too much money wrapped up in that franchise. It's not going anywhere soon.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by T-Bone-T ( 1048702 )
          Halo 3 was huge because it is at the climax of the story. It can't help but sell. Why do many sequels fail? They are the same character in the same world but with a new story. The old story is done and gone. Halo 2 is a different kind of sequel because it continued the story of Halo: CE and Halo 3 finishes the story. Just by playing Halo: CE and Halo 2 one can figure out the basic premise of Halo 3. The tag line says it all. What would Halo 4 even be about? It would just be a standard sequel.

          Most g
    • First off, it was written before they knew that bungie was going to continue the halo series, so they didn't know.

      Second, they actually say right in there that the most likely thing would be for bungie to make the next halo, but for another studio to do titles between bungie releases (much like Call of Duty 3 or the NWN expansion packs).

      The points are well written and thought out, although Tycho [penny-arcade.com] points out two more that would be great for the job.
    • I think they're already pretty committed to releasing the Halo RTS on Xbox and PC... at least I got more than a couple ads about it in my Halo 3 box. (Then again, I got also got ads for Starcraft: Ghost in my WOW box, so I guess there are salt grains there.)

      I'm pretty sure they're working on a non-Halo and probably non-Marathon title as well. (Myth 4? Oni 2? Or something new? Who knows.)

  • I know... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @11:36AM (#20868419) Homepage
    ...that I'm not on the inside so I don't know all the little happenings that occur behind closed doors, but it's quite obvious that the Halo franchise is a boon to both Bungie and to Microsoft...I wouldn't be suprised if Halo remained a Bungie and Microsoft exclusive venture....Bungie getting more freedom to do what they wish with the franchise, and getting a healthy sum of money from Microsoft in the process.

    In all honesty, both sides would be foolish to give up the current relationship they have with that franchise, even if Bungie becomes 100% independent.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by svendsen ( 1029716 )
      100% agreed. With all the money Bungie has mad from the MS deal they can use it to branch out the halo franchise, invest more into R&D, make new games, etc.

      And MS...well we know how much Halo has helped them. So they don;t want to ruin it either.
    • All they do is make Halo and even then we wait a YEAR for the PC release.

      There is no excuse for that other than to squeaze as much as they can in the 360 market. I just wonder if they will be given the same freedom as an "independent"

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Pojut ( 1027544 )
        From a consumers point of view, that is a shitty stupid thing to do...but look at it from a buisness point of view, or more specifically Microsoft's point of view...it makes perfect sense.

        Microsoft already has a legal monopoly in the computing industry...they are only in their second generation in the gaming industry. They need something to help cement themselves into place...the halo series is one of their primary tools for doing so. While for CONSUMERS it would make more sense and would be better to rel

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by happyemoticon ( 543015 )

          That is very true - Halo was used to drive Xbox sales. It's the whole "killer app" phenomenon. The point that needs to be emphasized, though, is not that consumers were losing out, but that Bungie was losing out. They were losing money they would have made if they were not forced to make Halo an almost-exclusive title, and I betcha they lost even more money on that whole "Direct X 10 Only Because We Need to Sell Vista" debacle.

          If I was an employee at Bungie, I'd be thinking something along the lines of, "

    • I don't know that Bungie would get a "healthy sum of money from Microsoft" at the outset. Probably the opposite. Microsoft paid, let's say 50 million to buy Bungie (I don't really know the real amount) and the heads of Bungie got rich on that deal. But since then, Bungie's value has gone up 10-fold (Rare cost ~300 million; Bungie would be worth at least twice that today). It would seem that Bungie would have to buy back it's semi-independence by paying Microsoft at least some of what it would be worth i

      • Re:I know... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @02:48PM (#20871579)
        or maybe the Bungie developers threatened to all quit if Microsoft did not let them go back to being independent. If you notice, they have been somewhat tied to MS Xbox360 and that's not being too independent. The PS2 is still the dominant game platform and the PS3 isn't something to just ignore. Not to mention the Bungie developers might actually want to product a PS3 version because of what that hardware brings.

        Just as Microsoft purchased SoftImage only to get them to product a Windows OS version and tried to terminate the UNIX version because the goal was to build support for the WindowsNT OS. In the SoftImage deal, Microsoft ran into major fights with employees over this Windows-only push from Microsoft. Microsoft eventually spit SoftImage back out and they continue to support both *nix and Windows platforms. This Bungie split sounds quite like the SoftImage deal and especially so after hearing how well Halo 3 for Xbox360 sold. You'd think Microsoft would REALLY want to keep control of that kind of money maker and not let the split off to support the other guys.

        And who knows, maybe there was quite an uproar from other game vendors because of the ownership of competing game developers such as Bungie? Would really like to know how/why this happened.

        LoB

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by edwdig ( 47888 )
        Rare cost ~300 million; Bungie would be worth at least twice that today

        MS paid Nintendo ~300 million for Nintendo's 49% share of Rare. Presumably they paid Rare a similar amount for the rest of the company.

        As for comparing the values of the company, that's a tough call. Rare owned the rights to Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Killer Instinct, Conker, and some assorted other properties, some recent, some not. The only thing Bungie has done in this decade is Halo, which MS is retaining the rights to. They've got

  • I know (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 05, 2007 @11:37AM (#20868433)

    MTV wonders out loud ... if Bungie doesn't make Halo 4 who will?
    Uwe Boll. It's going to be the world's first interactive Broadway musical in space plot.

    • Shut It.. (Score:3, Funny)

      by jeko ( 179919 )
      You shut your filthy mouth! Clamp that pie hole shut! Don't you know even breathing an idea that foul can make it come true?! Say things like that and tomorrow we could all wake up to find Stan Lee has signed over licenses to all the Marvel properties to Uwe ... Oh God ...

  • Halo 3 (Score:2, Funny)

    by sunsfan1991 ( 1114991 )
    Comming soon to the Wii

  • Nobody should be surprised (Score:5, Insightful)

    by paleo2002 ( 1079697 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @11:50AM (#20868631)

    Ever since Bungie was purchased by Microsoft, they've done nothing but produce Halo for the XBox. No PC ports, no different games, they're barely even allowed to produce story-driven single player content. Go back and look at Bungie's pre-Xbox games: the Marathon series (which was intended to tie in to Halo), the Myth series, even Pathways into Darkness was more original than Halo 3.

    I was angry with Bungie when, just a few months before Halo was to be released as a Mac exclusive, Microsoft bought them out and put them to work. But eventually I began to feel sorry for them. Bungie has had its creativity stifled for quite some time now and they've finally realized it.

    • Ever since Bungie was purchased by Microsoft, they've done nothing but produce Halo for the XBox. No PC ports
      So.. what exactly is Halo 2 for Vista?
    • What the subject says..
      Anyone that read the Black Company series can find the tie ins and some overall plot similarities, but Bungie still filled in alot of their own content and added alot of unique things. It was an 'inspired by' and not a copy. I liked that.. it was good.

      Probably the best thing about the Myth series was it was one of the first games I recall that had no mod tools, but was still heavily modded. Unfortunately I couldn't get into Myth 3 nearly as much as I could Myth 1 or 2.

      VR Pool Party 4

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Sloppy ( 14984 )

        Probably the best thing about the Myth series was it was one of the first games I recall that had no mod tools, but was still heavily modded.
        I'm so confused. What were Hammer and Anvil (which came on my Myth2 CD from Loki) if not mod tools? Were those tools supplied by Loki? I might be misremembering, but I thought my lil' brother had those on his (non-Loki) Mac version, too.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ambitwistor ( 1041236 )

      I was angry with Bungie when, just a few months before Halo was to be released as a Mac exclusive, Microsoft bought them out and put them to work.
      IIRC, Halo was never intended to be a Mac exclusive: it was slated to be a Mac/PC release. In the public announcement at Steve Jobs' 1999 keynote address, they might have said it would come out on the Mac first, but I know they definitely had a PC prototype running at the time (that's what they ported the Mac demo from).
    • No PC ports? I am happily playing Halo and Halo 2 on the PC.

      I was just thinking, wouldn't it be funny, sice they are no longer part of Microsoft, if they released a PS3 port of Halo?

    • Re:Nobody should be surprised (Score:4, Informative)

      by I'm Don Giovanni ( 598558 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @12:56PM (#20869867)
      I hate to break this to you, but Bungie was on its way to bankruptcy and the Microsoft buy-out saved them. There were reports to that effect at the time.

      Besides that, do a web search for an "Evolution of Halo" video. It's a quicktime video made a few years ago, about 30 minutes long or so (maybe an hour), that features Bungie developers showing footage of Halo at its various stages of development, since it was first announced at Mac World, then became a PC/Mac title, and right up until the Xbox version. The video includes commentary by three Bungie devs and at one point they talk of the fact that had it not been for Microsoft, Halo would never have been completed and released, period. Bungie was on the ropes as a company before MS bought them.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Altus ( 1034 )

        while it is true that they needed an infusion of cash, its not a stretch to imagine a world where that cash came from another source. Someplace like Apple for instance (to make it mac exclusive, or at least mac first) or perhaps another gaming company.

        Clearly this was a good move for MS, but I remember what was being promised with Halo back in the beginning and what was delivered was very different. At least some of those changes were due to the fact that it was an X-box release instead of a Mac/PC game.
    • Ever since Bungie was purchased by Microsoft, they've done nothing but produce Halo for the XBox. No PC ports,

      You can buy Halo and Halo 2 for PC right now:
      http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=645137 [gamestop.com]
      http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=646888 [gamestop.com]

      no different games, they're barely even allowed to produce story-driven single player content.

      Have you even played the single-player story in the Halo series? I know more than a couple people who bought Halo 3 to specifically see how the story ends, a

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by enderjsv ( 1128541 )
      I don't get it. Where have you ever read/seen/heard that Microsoft was stifling Bungie's creativity. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you think about it. Microsoft paid a lot of money for Bungie. It's not like the abducted Bungie and forced them to be their slaves. It was a two way deal, and it's easy to see why Bungie accepted the deal. With all the extra money, they could do bigger things. It's no lie that building games costs a lot of money.

      From the looks of things, it seems that Microsof

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Locutus ( 9039 )
        Microsoft does these kinds of things to either kill off a product for another platform or to force the new purchase into the wonderful world of Windows. They've been pretty successful at protecting their monopoly in the PC OS market and IMO, Bungie was a way for them to "grow" the Xbox marketshare. If there are profits, it's a bonus but the real reason for all of this is to protect the Windows monopoly. It is there that their 10s of billions in annual profits come from. My guess is that Bungie fought back i

  • Bring back Marathon! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 05, 2007 @11:52AM (#20868685)
    Perhaps Bugnie wants to get back to developing for other non-windows platforms as well?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_Trilogy [wikipedia.org]
  • They'll attach to his hip with a deep-a-ccord...

  • Can we say it? (Score:5, Funny)

    by russbutton ( 675993 ) <(moc.nottubssur) (ta) (ssur)> on Friday October 05, 2007 @11:58AM (#20868769) Homepage
    Bungie is jumping...

  • Apparently... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Floritard ( 1058660 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @12:02PM (#20868845)
    Bungie is as tired of hearing about Halo as I am!

  • Did any other British readers read this as... (Score:4, Funny)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @12:14PM (#20869067)
    Bungle is leaving Microsoft? I guess that only leaves Zippy....
  • There is an interesting and surprisingly in depth article on Bungie and how they went about developing for Halo 3. They follow Bungie's development process and get into things like how Bungie solved different AI problems etc. Anyway when you have some free time, it's 6 pages long, hop over to http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/15-09/ff_halo [wired.com] and give it a read. Btw I don't own an Xbox and never played Halo but I still found the article very interesting.

  • Halo DS? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Darktyco ( 621568 )
    Does this mean that they are goign to release Halo DS [joystiq.com]?

  • Clearly what will happen (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @12:31PM (#20869419) Homepage Journal
    Is that Bungie get as far away as Microsoft as they can without crashing the company, hold their own for a bit, but then come run rushing back towards Microsoft though never as close, and then they will distance themselves again but less severe, and so on and so forth.
  • We can actually go out and buy legal copies of Halo for Mac now?
    • What do you mean? The Mac version of Halo was released years ago in 2003. What is preventing you from "legally buying" it? Was it discontinued for some reason?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ducomputergeek ( 595742 )
      Geesh, hate to reply to my own thread, but those who missed the story:

      Linky: http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/05/174217 [macslash.org]

      For those who don't want to read AFA here is the short version: More copies of Halo for Mac have been pirated than sold. Mostly out of spite from mac fan boys for the fact that originally Halo was to be a Mac first title (some say Mac-only, but...) before Microsoft bought Bungie and had it developed as the "killer app". I generally assumed that enough of geekdom around here kn

  • Is this what's known as getting bungied .. ?

  • So Bungie becomes like Polyphony (Score:4, Interesting)

    by I'm Don Giovanni ( 598558 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @12:35PM (#20869493)
    Besides Shane Kim's statment of Bungie/MS continuing relationship quoted in the summary, the article also says:

    Bungie studio head Harold Ryan described the move as "an exciting evolution" of the relationship with Microsoft.
    "We will continue to develop with our primary focus on Microsoft's platforms; we greatly value our mutually prosperous relationship with our publisher, Microsoft Game Studios, and we look forward to continuing that affiliation through Halo and beyond," he said.


    The article also says Microsoft will "will retain an equity interest" in Bungie.

    This tells me that Bungie simply goes from Microsoft 1st party to Microsoft 2nd party, like Sony's relationship with Polyphony (makers of GT).

     

  • Yay! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nerdacus ( 1161321 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @12:51PM (#20869759)
    Maybe they'll go back to making Mac games again. Won't hold my breath though.
  • Praise Kevin Bacon! I was very pissed when Bungie sold out to MS. Bungie used to make great products, especially for the make. Their graphics were unrivaled in their day and for many years afterwards even by Id. Since then I don't believe Bungie has made a single Mac title/port (not that I recall at least). I for one am quite glad Bungie made the split.
    • It might be a bit early to celebrate just yet. MS still has some stake in them and honestly, the old Bungie we knew and loved from the early days of PC gaming is dead and gone. I mean look at their press release, they refer to the Halo story as "property" rather than a story or a universe. It's just property to be flogged for $, not the labor of love and storytelling that their older games were. That is why the story for Halo has not been very good in the followup games and by Halo 3, you basically have
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Myth! Multiple platforms... something NEW (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hellfire ( 86129 ) <deviladv.gmail@com> on Friday October 05, 2007 @01:21PM (#20870259) Homepage
    I'm not into FPS but I hear halo is pretty good. Marathon was good back in it's day. Another title you may not have known about was the Myth series. Hot damn I loved that series. It's classified under strategy games but it's really an early foray into tactical unit management and it was brilliant. I miss it so. It was one game that I wasn't good at, never once won an online game I played. And yet I couldn't get enough multiplayer. All that 3D work and physics modelling you see in WC3 and SC2... Myth pioneered that in "strategy" games ten years ago.

    I want to see new Mac games from Bungie again. I liked playing all their games, even FPS. Doom and quake never interested me. Marathon... there was just something about Marathon. The best companies invest in the mythos and storyline of their game. Bungie does that so well. When Bungie was purchased by Microsoft and halo taken to xbox, I lost all interest.

    And hell, it's about time they just came up with something completely new.
  • I have been a Bungie fan for a LONG time (since Marathon), and loved them back then. And loved them even more for games like Myth: The Fallen Lords series. But ever since MS bought them and brought them into their entertainment division, all other series other then Halo have been simply written off and no new work done on new franchises other then Halo. Basically their A team was told, Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 4, etc., etc. If you finish one of them start working on the next....
  • Maybe we'll start seeing all that great talent EA assimilated start struggling and freeing itself back to independent, free-thinking studios that can create real products with value.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Looks like they want to return to the Mac (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dracvl ( 541254 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @02:37PM (#20871419) Homepage
    "But sure, now that we're branching of and controlling our destiny, that puts us in a position where we could put ourselves back on the [Mac] platform definitively again," said Jarrard." From this MacWorld article [macworld.com].

  • Maybe another Marathon sequal? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Danathar ( 267989 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @02:50PM (#20871617) Journal
    I'd love to see them do another Marathon sequel with the Halo engine.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_Trilogy [wikipedia.org]

  • Finally (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrCopilot ( 871878 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @02:53PM (#20871661) Homepage Journal
    Now we can all wait patiently for ONI_2 for the PC.

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