Friday, October 5, 2007

Bungie leaves Microsoft

Bungie leaves Microsoft

Microsoft Corp said on Friday that Bungie, the crown jewel of its video game unit that was behind its hit "Halo" franchise, will become an independent company.

Microsoft said it will retain a stake in the new company and will continue to publish future "Halo" games and other titles, although Bungie indicated it could also make titles for gaming devices other than Microsoft's Xbox 360.


So Bungie will be an "independent company" and Microsoft "will retain a stake" in it.

"Bungie released a statement saying Microsoft, which bought the developer in 2000, will retain a minority equity interest."

What does that mean?

10 comments:

Roscoe said...

It's roughly equivalent to the Square-Enix and Sony situation, at least for the layfolk like you and I.

Microsoft keeps the rights to the Halo IP, and gets first refusal rights on anything Bungie makes.

Bungie gets back a level of independence and freedom from corporate direction.

Technically Sony owns a larger portion of Squeenix, and I'm not sure they do the same first-refusal thing. But in broad strokes, they're similar.

Mike Lewis said...

is this going to make it any harder for me to play TF 2?

does anyone have a SATA harddrive they are not using?

_J_ said...

SATA Hard Drives remind me of a funny story involving Roscoe's Computer, assumptions, and trips to Best Buy.

Roscoe said...

Shouldn't make it any harder, as Bungie wasn't behind Team Fortress..

That's Valve, isn't it?

_J_ said...

I don't know what Team Fortress is.

I read people typing about it on the PA forums, but I don't know what it is.

Mike Lewis said...

Team Fortress is a class based FPC - it started as a quake 2 mod - than remade on half-life (where i played it the first time.)

death match is fun - but this has the stratagy of counter strike, but doesnt require you to play for 15 hours a day in order to be good at it.

Valve? i think my dad drives one of those.

_J_ said...

FPC. That's a First Person Circumcision?

Roscoe said...

That's the typo you jump on?

The whole post, and that's the one you take up arms with?

MA17 said...

I'm still surprised Team Fortress 2 is even coming out. I thought that game had sort of just died sometime in the last, what, 10 years of its development?

Also, in this weird world where seemingly tiny companies buy up huge companies, I predict that Bungie will buy Microsoft within 10 years.

_J_ said...

That's the typo you jump on?

It was the easiest one to mock.