Microsoft Sued Over Mobile Halo Title

GamesIndustry.biz reports on a lawsuit filed by French developer In-Fusio against Microsoft. The company, which specializes in games for moblie phones, was apparently slated to develop a title in the Halo universe. Instead, they've filed suit, claiming that Bungie's parent company refuses to sign off on design documents, holding up the game's overall development process. In return, In-Fusio is now refusing to pay a reported $500,000 to the company. Microsoft sees this as a good time to end the agreement. From the article: "The developer now believes the Xbox manufacturer has purposefully ignored efforts to create a title, stating in the suit: 'Microsoft has thwarted In-Fusio's efforts to develop Halo under the agreement ... Indeed, in the last 11 months, Microsoft has approved no fully developed In-Fusio game designs; ignoring and then refusing to accept In-Fusio's game design concepts with little or no explanation and leaving In-Fusio little basis to revise its concepts to obtain Microsoft's approval.'"

Comments

This reminds me of another cell phone thing

[erroneus]

I don't feel like digging up the details, but I believe the name "Orange" was used in the discussion where a cell phone maker was persuaded to partner up with Microsoft where Microsoft had some sort of approval or other thing like that delaying the other company's progress. This forced a default by the other company and then Microsoft assumed the technology developed by the other company as a result of the default.

It has been a few years so my memory is a bit hazy, but I'll bet I'm not the only one recalling this...

Not what I'd expect.

[cgenman]

Not to be too Pro-Microsoft, but I've always found their games division to be really good to work with. At heart they're a bunch of game geeks who are thrilled that they've got the juggernaut to bankroll whatever it is they want to do. And, generally, they seem to want to fund nifty stuff. From a communication standpoint as a platform company they've been every bit as good about communication as Sony and Nintendo, and in certain respects better (in others, worse. Each has their quirks). But, of course, get the toothbrush salesmen involved at a higher level, and who knows what MS will do.

The french company that is licensed to work on this title has a good history of licensed conversions, some with MS IP. But they've never handled anything that would lead one to believe they could do Halo as anything other than a 2D sidescrolling shooter. And they started with wallpapers and ringtones... not exactly a prelude to doing an IP justice. Plus with an IP license cost that alone could develop a mid-level PS2 game, how much could they have left over to actually develop the title?

So I really wouldn't know who to believe without more evidence, but I'd be willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt until other stories like this emerged from developers. In my admittedly limited experience, this doesn't sound like the kind of thing MS's game division usually does. Anyone with more experience working with licensed IP from Redmond willing to share?