General Business

Makers of Halo 3, Bungie Studios, Divorce from Microsoft

The Redmond company offers official confirmation

By Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor

5th of October 2007, 16:08 GMT

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Microsoft has officially confirmed the divorce from Bungie Studios, the maker of Halo 3. However, the Redmond company downplayed the situation by revealing that the two companies will embark on a new long-term relationship. This detail does not change in any way the fact that Bungie will become an independent company. Rumors of the split between Microsoft and Bungie have been circulating for some time now, but Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division refused either to confirm or to deny the course of action

to be taken by the two companies, a couple of days ago.

"Our collaboration with Bungie has resulted in 'Halo' becoming an enduring mainstream hit," said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios. "While we are supporting Bungie's desire to return to its independent roots, we 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."

Essentially, the developers of the Halo video-game franchise will regain their independence, with Microsoft still retaining an interest in Bungie. The Redmond company revealed that the two parties will remain connected by the co-ownership of the "Halo" intellectual property, and that the franchise will continue to unite them. Halo 3, recently launched exclusively for the Xbox 360 platform, sold in excess of $300 million worth of copies in the first week worldwide.

"This exciting evolution of our relationship with Microsoft will enable us to expand both creatively and organizationally in our mission to create world-class games," said Harold Ryan, studio head for Bungie. "We will continue to develop with our primary focus on Microsoft 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."

TAGS:

Microsoft | Bungie | Halo | Xbox 360

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User opinions:

Comment #1 by: Rajan gohel on 23 Jul 2008, 17:06 GMT	reply to this comment
you should make halo 5 in which all bad humans turn into some sort of alien that want to take over the universe and spartan, the arbiter, elites and the marines get back together to fight the bad humans. some of the covenet might join the good guys. me and my mates came up with this idea we think you should put this into production.

Comment #2 by: Gabriel sean larson on 08 Aug 2008, 12:27 GMT	reply to this comment
well i really like Bungie and was hoping that if there ever is a halo 4 they would be the designers of the game, plus with movie coming out soon it my not be as good without them.

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