Official - Bungie Departing Microsoft

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.

Comments

Bring back Marathon!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps Bugnie wants to get back to developing for other non-windows platforms as well?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_Trilogy

So Bungie becomes like Polyphony

[I'm Don Giovanni]

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!

[nerdacus]

Maybe they'll go back to making Mac games again. Won't hold my breath though.

Myth! Multiple platforms... something NEW

[hellfire]

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.

Looks like they want to return to the Mac

[dracvl]

"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.