Following the confirmation of Microsoft and Bungie splitting up, Wired News had a little chat with Bungie content manager Frank O'Connor, who revealed that not only is everything A OK, but they're planning to go forward and expand the developing staff. More than that, O'Connor also touches a more sensitive subject - Halo 3 of course - commenting that as soon as new ideas come to put the Halo universe at work again, they'll be considering new 'cool Halo stuff.'

"One of the things we're doing now is going forward and expanding the staff sensibly and at a manageable rate. In the future, that means we'll be able to work on multiple projects simultaneously," Frank O'Connor told Wired News.

As mentioned above, O'Connor also weighs in on exactly how big Bungie's involvement in Halo will be in the future. He confidently confirms that Halo is still a big part of Bungie and that Microsoft still wants them to work on the franchise:

"We are definitely working on two Halo projects right now: the downloadable content and the Peter Jackson project. I've seen rumors that were literally just speculation that we were sick of working on Halo. That couldn't be further from the truth. We always had and continue to have very tight almost control-freakish relationship with that IP, which of course belongs to Microsoft, but we're still creatively associated with it and Microsoft trusts us to make cool Halo stuff in the short term. In the long term, who knows, if we have a cool story to tell in the Halo universe it's certainly something we'd consider."

So the Peter Jackson thing is still up and running, which, just for the record, doesn't necessarily have to be a movie. In fact, if you can remember, an interview with Bungie's community lead, Brian Jarrard, revealed just a couple of weeks ago that they might consider working with Peter Jackson on "a new Halo game," aside the downloadable content for Halo 3.

If you want our opinion, the year doesn't end without someone from Bungie or Microsoft making another big Halo announcement. Master Chief is just too big of an icon now to let go just like that.