Thought this might be worthy of it's own thread since it isn't really 360 or Halo 3 related... but there have been rumors the last couple days that Bungie is splitting from Microsoft.

http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Sto...1438.22348.htm

Obviously something to be skeptical about, but I first read about it yesterday and it hasn't been debunked by either Bungie or Microsoft yet.

Thoughts? Think it's bullshit? Think it's true?

I think it's bullshit. For no other reason than to be the first one in this thread to say so.

S2K

I think it's real because of MS's answer to the "rumor" - paraphrased - 'we haven't made any such announcement and we celebrate the success of Halo.'

If this happens, MS will obviously keep the rights to the Halo franchise. But it will be a huge blow for the Xbox 360 not having Bungie in its corner. How could MS have let this happen?

How could they leave Microsoft? Microsoft bought them, right? Oh, I see, they "bought it back" from Microsoft. Ummmm, yeah right. No fucking way Microsoft is giving back the company that makes its highest selling property.

Per the link:
* They paid a substantial amount of $ for it back
* MS keeps rights to Halo
* MS has rights of first refusal for all subsequent Bungie games

Even if Bungie moved on from Microsoft, they'd be crazy not to continue to develop games for the 360. More games for the 360 = more money to develop games for other platforms. I'm personally hoping they go back to developing for the Mac.

One comment that i saw on Kotaku guessed that a possibility was the threat of a large amount of Bungie developers packing up and starting their own development studio... which certainly wouldn't be out of the ordinary considering how often that happens these days.

If there was a chance of that happening, maybe cutting a deal sounded more attractive?

I don't know, i'm leaning towards it being a bunch of shit, but thought it would be fun to post

God I hope they don't make a Halo game for the Wii...the master chief would look rediculous with Mario's head on his shoulders, lol.

People still game on the Mac? Seriously?

As someone that works with a company that is mac-friendly.... yes, a shit load.

Supposedly a lot of this comes down to Bungie not wanting to be indentured to Microsoft for Halo full-time, which I could understand. Still, you would think Microsoft would do whatever it took (add staff, etc) to keep Bungie making Halo and doing whatever side projects or new IPs they wanted to.

Does anyone honestly think this is even a plausible scenario?

Well then, they probably should've thought about that before they sold the company to Microsoft.

MS retains the rights to Halo and saves it's pennies for the rumored Take-Two acquisition at the same time? Sounds plausible to me.

Still haven't seen or heard anything concrete(other than it's coming) about GTAIV on PS3 yet...


... I'm just sayin'

That's what I was thinking. Microsoft who was "rumored" to pay off Dreamworks and Paramount $200 million for HD-DVD exclusivity would actually let this company go.

And does Bungie make any games other than Halo?

I know the Bungie name is worth some $$$, but the Halo franchise and the talent are the biggest assets. Why would Bungie pay a "significant amount of money for the studio name back from Microsoft", without the Halo rights, when they could just leave and form a company under another name without paying a significant amount of $$$?

Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.

Even TeamXBox has something to add...

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/14693/...ing-Microsoft/

Ask Free Radical. All the talent and genius that made Rare famous without the Rare name. I bet they wish they had the option of keeping their name and just forfeited the properties, they would have done so in a heartbeat. Rare's worst stuff probably sees better sales than FR's best stuff based on name alone.

The average consumer doesn't see the faces that make the games, they see Bungie made Halo and now "Bungie" made X game. "From the makers of..." isn't as solid of a sale as company branding.

Plus Bungie has more invested than just the name. Bungie.net has been an integral part of their operation for years now, and the rights to that site are worth a ton of money to them.

Based on what I read on several pages I think it's real.

And it's supposed to be officially announced next week.

Rare will be doing Halo 4.

Gamespot debunked this pretty thoroughly.

I'll wait for some official announcement.

I just can't see how a company can buy themselves back from Microsoft. Even if ever single employee jumped ship and started their own company, don't you think Microsoft can bring in the talent to put out a quality game?