I hope they go second party to Nintendo. Then you Microsoft fanboys will know how we Nintendo people felt when Rareware made the switch. Then again, Rareware hasn't done anything worth while since the acquisition, but you get my point. And what's up with the "I'll hate Bungie if they leave Microsoft" mentality? Who cares who owns Bungie, as long as they still make great games?

Suggestions: re: 3-5 years. That is for fist pick option, not for any/all agreements (and that covers initial game proposal, not the entire development period) Response from MS: as this is a significant announcement re: one fo their major divisions, my guess is that any announcement would be after the close of trade on Friday, as that is when most companies release "bad" news

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] x Foman123 x [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] WileEAmerican Anyone ever think that maybe this was a part of the plan? Bungie would do the halo games then after that M$ would give them freedom. You know as a part of the orginal deal when they acquired Bungie. After all the x-box would have never survived with out halo and no one would have bought the 360 with out halo3. I know the only reason i got a 360 was because of H3. Now that Halo is over (as far as Bungie is concerned) they are going to go their separate ways.[/quote]No. A deal in a purchasing contract like that would have to be made public. Bungie may be a secretive company, but Microsoft's business dealings are subject to open scrutiny because Microsoft is a publicly owned company. Stuff like this just does not happen -- the implausibility of a deal like this is beyond comprehension. Some of you indicated that it might be possible if Bungie's entire creative team decided to band together and up-and-leave Bungie unless Microsoft gives Bungie its freedom. This would still not be enough. As long as Microsoft owns the Bungie name, it will make money -- regardless of who the creative team is, after Halo, any software title with the name "BUNGIE" on the cover is guaranteed to ship at least a million units, if not millions more. Bungie has the most fantastic software developers in the business, for sure, but the name Bungie is extremely valuable. Like I said before, any executive responsible for a secret deal simply releasing Bungie in exchange for some kind of bizarre deal would be burned by an angry mob of Microsoft shareholders. This is simply not the way the business world works. This rumor has no merit.[/quote] Exactly how long would Bungie's name power last after a crappy title? Unless MS turned Bungie into the next EA or Rockstar, the development times for a game would still be around 3 years. So in five or six years, would the name Bungie sell an easy million units when the only thing they've produced in half a decade is some mediocre shooter? If the rumor is correct, it would mean that MS makes money on Halo (Wars, the movie, Jackson's project, any future products), and being the publisher for Bungie would bring them money from future bungie games as well. (The rumored limit of 3-5 year publishing deal doesn't make much sense, considering that's barely enough for two games... at most 4, if Bungie worked on games concurrently). Also, how would your analysis change if the deal involved Bungie developing exclusively for MS consoles? If that were the case, I don't see how much of anything would change, as far as the pocketbooks are concerned. Except for that fact that MS would no longer be bearing the brunt of funding Bungie. Also, after two days, no announcement whatsoever? I know Microsoft moves slowly, but come on. If such a deal would be as abhorrent as you make it sound, wouldn't someone come up to make quell this whole thing before they into trouble? (Crap, I've got not time for proofreading, I hope that came out right.)

If this is true them think of it this way... 1, MS Say screw you we are not selling it back to you, all the key employees leave and form a new company totally independent of MS 2, MS let bungie become independent keeping ful rights to everything halo and get publishing rights on bungie games So #2 Is win/win for both, #1 is Lose for MS win for Bungie Few things that confuse me though frankie has talked about currently working with meter jackson on the halo project why would they be doing this if they were due to split from MS...

MS Owns Halo reguardless of what bungie does, Did 95% of Halo fans know who Bungie was before it was made? If the stockholders did buy back the studio and they did start making other games w/o Halo, they wouldn't be around too long. Bungie should do Halo storyline games for as long as they can ride the money train once Halo burns out, then retire.

You stress that we read the entire thing you just posted, yet apparently you didn't read those articles entirely through yourself. There are some errogenous or missing bits in those articles. While I believe something is amiss, the seattle post-intelligencer didn't recieve an email, it was a blog that they posted from some guy named Jacob Metcalf. The blogger says their source on this is reliable, but later confirmed the source doesn't even work for Microsoft or Bungie, but still he trusted his "source". The doors locks being changed were later to be revealed that they were updating the building to meet the handicapped access requirements, or something along those lines, the timing just happened to be around the time this rumor was started. Game Informer never confirmed anything, they just said that their source had passed them some information that was similar in someways, but stated Bungie had bought themselves back from MS. As far as I am concerned I wouldn't trust anything game informer publishes, just because they are in cahoots with Gamestop, and the crap they write is so far slanted by their fanboyism, it's like reading something published by Fox news, no spin zone, my BLAM. And to all you nintendo and sony guys who, for some reason can't get it through your thick skulls, you aren't getting Halo in any shape or form on your consoles, one Sony basically told Bungie, to go fornicate themselves back in the day, and two, the Wii can't even handle it, because it's weak sauce.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Overttkill i'm sorry but I really believe this is TRUE....please see post below, please make sure you read the GAME INFORMER part in this post http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Bungie+Studios+Departing+From+Microsoft/article9139.htm also see http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163310 Unconfirmed: Microsoft lets go of Bungie Studios but retains rights to Halo (PLEASE KEEP READING TILL THE END) In what may be nearly unbelievable news, word is circulating around the web that Bungie Studios’ days under Microsoft may be over. The initial news first started from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, an outlet known for its Microsoft-related information, and has since grown legs as other media have followed up on the story. According to an email received by the Post-Intelligencer, Microsoft has released Bungie Studios from its ownership. The deal is apparently done, but Microsoft wishes to hold the public announcement until after October 6 for the protection of quarterly financial results. The email reads: “Apparently MS just wants Bungie to make Halo for the rest of their natural days, and Bungie doesn't like how MS is constantly trying to "handle" everything they do; the way they market their games, the way they interact with their fans (basically the fact that they do appreciate their fans), and how stingie [sic] they are with the profits (comparable to the rest of the industry). So as of today they are their own independent entity.” Game Informer checked with its own sources and reports that Bungie and Microsoft separated on October 1, 2007. According to the magazine, Bungie did not wish to be tied down to indefinitely making Halo games. As a result, shareholders of Bungie bought the studio name back from Microsoft for “an unstated, but significant amount of money.” Microsoft will retain all rights to the Halo franchise, assuring that the Master Chief will never grace competitors’ systems, and will also hold “the right of first refusal on future games,” meaning that Halo 3 probably won’t be the last Xbox 360 exclusive title from Bungie Studios. When asked for comment, Microsoft’s PR representatives did not deny or confirm the validity of such events. “To your question, there's been no such announcement. We can't comment further,” said one representative to 1UP, while another said, “There's been no such announcement. We continue to celebrate the tremendous success of the global phenomenon that is Halo 3.” It’s unlikely that any official confirmation or denial of Bungie’s split from Microsoft will appear before the end of the week. The only thing certain right now is that the door locks on Bungie’s offices in Kirkland, WA have all been changed – perhaps as a sign of a change in ownership.[/quote] If this is true, then why is the site still under copyright of MS? since the change would have already happened. As for the changing of locks, its a piss poor piece of evidence as there could be a number of reasons for this, if it did actually happen, like general up grading of security, the old ones failed etc.

i'm sorry but I really believe this is TRUE....please see post below, please make sure you read the GAME INFORMER part in this post http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Bungie+Studios+Departing+From+Microsoft/article9139.htm also see http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163310 Unconfirmed: Microsoft lets go of Bungie Studios but retains rights to Halo (PLEASE KEEP READING TILL THE END) In what may be nearly unbelievable news, word is circulating around the web that Bungie Studios’ days under Microsoft may be over. The initial news first started from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, an outlet known for its Microsoft-related information, and has since grown legs as other media have followed up on the story. According to an email received by the Post-Intelligencer, Microsoft has released Bungie Studios from its ownership. The deal is apparently done, but Microsoft wishes to hold the public announcement until after October 6 for the protection of quarterly financial results. The email reads: “Apparently MS just wants Bungie to make Halo for the rest of their natural days, and Bungie doesn't like how MS is constantly trying to "handle" everything they do; the way they market their games, the way they interact with their fans (basically the fact that they do appreciate their fans), and how stingie [sic] they are with the profits (comparable to the rest of the industry). So as of today they are their own independent entity.” Game Informer checked with its own sources and reports that Bungie and Microsoft separated on October 1, 2007. According to the magazine, Bungie did not wish to be tied down to indefinitely making Halo games. As a result, shareholders of Bungie bought the studio name back from Microsoft for “an unstated, but significant amount of money.” Microsoft will retain all rights to the Halo franchise, assuring that the Master Chief will never grace competitors’ systems, and will also hold “the right of first refusal on future games,” meaning that Halo 3 probably won’t be the last Xbox 360 exclusive title from Bungie Studios. When asked for comment, Microsoft’s PR representatives did not deny or confirm the validity of such events. “To your question, there's been no such announcement. We can't comment further,” said one representative to 1UP, while another said, “There's been no such announcement. We continue to celebrate the tremendous success of the global phenomenon that is Halo 3.” It’s unlikely that any official confirmation or denial of Bungie’s split from Microsoft will appear before the end of the week. The only thing certain right now is that the door locks on Bungie’s offices in Kirkland, WA have all been changed – perhaps as a sign of a change in ownership.

Has no merit but unfortunately is true, something is going on behind the scenes, with luck nothing happens, but seems difficult.

Guys look Some companies gone on strike other threaten to quit. The key in this is getting the public or stock holders to crap there pants and put pressure on the company to give the workers 25% of what they want. 1. Bungie leaving mircosoft would be a disaster. Because if they were unable to take all of the vital people who make halo games they would be screwed. Think Halo with crap music or Halo with crap graphics ECT Second Mircosoft puts a lot of money into advertisment and that is the key to the sucsess of the halo games. 2. The halo story goes on. If you read the forth book you will see the last of the Spartans were trapped on the fourrunner shield planet. Did you take a good look at the halo 3 ending (No spoiler). Eric Nylund is Packed with halo story line and could shape the next game if the writers were to leave (he is microsoft not bungie). and on Graphics, When you owner your own island you can buy nice things like cliff B to do a halo game. Even though i am not a Gears of war fan. 3. Lets go back to the pressure! Boardroom guys don't play Video games they only know that things have been good so far so there fear will force microsoft to chip off just a little more of the crumb cake (Just a little) [Edited on 10.03.2007 11:43 AM PDT]

Right, there is no "Pharaoh, let my people go" Moses syndrome going on here. Is Bungie working in slave like conditions? They might be, but we would have no way of knowing. If they were tired of working on Halo, I'm sure they could very well move on to something else. Still, I don't think there is any indicator that they're absolutely done working on Master Chief's story. If I remember correctly, Bungie has stated that there is an Epoch's worth of fiction written for the Halo universe. Who knows, they may still be very enthusiastic about continuing the story.

Im just going to re-post my original post in all these threads: MS owns Bungie FULLY, which means they cannot leave. The employees can leave if not under contract, but bungie itself cannot and neither can the halo franchise or anything that bungie has worked on up to right now. Secondly, MS wouldn't go "hey, here's a new building, millions in bonuses and you have access to anyone you want in the greatest software company in the world but you can leave now if you want, and hell, we won't even charge you anything". We are talking about MS here, the company that was smart enough to hold on to their license for windows back in the day instead of just selling it. If I understood everything right when MS bought Bungie, they made sure that they would give Bungie complete creative control over everything they do. This means they can develop new IP's, hell Pimps at Sea could actually come out if they want to. Is there even a small chance they may "leave", yes but in a weird way. Bungie would become a second party developer which means they exclusively dev for 360 but not MS, if that makes any sense. Basically, it gets MS off the hook of dev costs for new IP's (as they wouldn't have to publish it and develop it) but also retains their greatest asset in the gaming industry. You will NEVER see a bungie game on a ps3 or a wii. Why? Devs hate designing for ps3, MS will still give them some backend support, and it will be worded into any split deal but if you are a betting man, Id bet on them staying right where they are.

Anyone ever think that maybe this was a part of the plan? Bungie would do the halo games then after that M$ would give them freedom. You know as a part of the orginal deal when they acquired Bungie. After all the x-box would have never survived with out halo and no one would have bought the 360 with out halo3. I know the only reason i got a 360 was because of H3. Now that Halo is over (as far as Bungie is concerned) they are going to go their separate ways.

Not that I'm privy to the corporate dynamics in Microsoft, but I can't see why MS wouldn't make some compromise with Bungie if they (Bungie) desired to create a new IP. Like I said, though, nobody really knows except MS and Bungie staff. It seems to me that MS gave Bungie a good deal of freedom to put as many features as they wanted to in Halo 3. Did MS force Bungie to include Forge, or Saved Films? It seems like those were original ideas included by Bungie. I've always suspected that Bungie would split into several teams, working on various IPs and franchises. Remaining partnered with MS (in one way or another) gives them unparalleled funding for their projects, so whatever the case, Bungie remaining close to MS is clearly the most advantageous direction to take. In any case, these rumors are still more or less unsubstantiated, so I'm going to wait for an official press release before I make any conclusions.

Perfect scenario would be, part of Bungie remains as Bungie inside MS as team 1, another part leaves creates new company and has exclusive rights and deals with MS as team 2. They develop games as they see fit. That would be cool, anything else is not so cool...

People are taking a lot of stuff way out of context here. Regardless of if this is true or not, I'll speak hypothetically as if it were true. Regarding losing the marketing power of MS I'd always thought that it was the publisher, not the developer, who handled marketing. If Microsoft do retain first refusal on the rights to publish future Bungie games then they still have their marketing strength behind them. Why would they put the money behind marketing a game for a development studio they don't own anymore? Easy, their primary focus is likely to get more people to buy more consoles, and if Bungie's future games are good, they can push them with the whole "from the makers of Halo" thing. About the leaving the ownership of Microsoft issue too. This doesnt automatically mean "OMGZ! Theys is goign to stops making games for my ThreeSixOh!". Bungie's fanbase and main market is in the USA and then followed by Europe, where I believe sales of the 360 are firmly trouncing the PS3. They also have experience developing for the 360 as a platform already, so just abandoning it straight out the gate would be a rather foolish decision at a time when they'd need to act in a way to ensure that the company can stand on it's own feet without Microsoft's direct support. Remember that they didn't manage this before. Whether this was due to them not adapting to the changing enviroment of game development or their not entirely successful attempt at expansion with Bungie West I don't know. They would have gone under if they weren't bought out by MS back then. Finally about Bungie's history as a developer. The Marathon and Halo games shows that they've got a very solid and strong basis as devlopers of FPS games. The Myth games were rather good RTS games in my opinion, and as I remember they were somewhat critically well recieved. I cannnot speak for their commercial success though. Oni is a different matter all together. It was developed by Bungie West, I don't know the full details of how closely tied it was to the creative force at the main Bungie development studio, so how strongly you want to consider it under their track record is up to you. Either way it's not an awful game, whilst also not being great. If anything to me it feels like it was a great idea that they didn't get to execute properly, either due to time or budgetry constraints. So in short, if they do leave Microsoft it probably wont be the end of them and they will likely go on to produce other good to great games. Also they'll likely stick with the 360 as a development platform too, or for the near future atleast. Of course, why I'm trying to put a rational series of thoughts to persons on the webs is beyond me. You can carry on with the baseless reactionary yells and whimpers now.

Bungie is 100% owned by Microsoft, they cannot "leave". Bungie can be sold, but there's no way in hell Microsoft is letting go of Bungie. The big announcement you guys keep hearing about is probably just the announcement of a new IP or a revival of the Halo movie. Seriously, c'mon.

This is sad, you are all sad. Please stop posting, stop creating rumors, stop creating ideias and wait, just wait until Microsoft or Bungie talks about it, don´t say things like they are true, when they are just in your mind... Please. [Edited on 10.03.2007 6:24 AM PDT]

My only issue with this whole scenario is... who is going to make future maps and maintain Halo 3 if Bungie spins off? I assume MS and Bungie will work out a deal for them to work with Halo 3 but until I hear the word it will draw some concern for me. [Edited on 10.03.2007 6:08 AM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] aku Bungie is not just some department of Microsoft. It is its own entity, that has remained fairly independent. And according to the rumor, it is not some other company that wants to buy Bungie, but the members of Bungie itself. If this is the case, then if MS said no, the employees could just quit. While losing one or two members may be acceptable, if the entire head creative team quit, there would not be much of a Bungie left. So if that was the case, it would be a better idea for MS to allow Bungie to leave with its name, in return for (according to rumors) the Halo franchise rights and the right to have the first chance to publish any future Bungie titles. That second factor would also ensure that Bungie keeps producing games for the 360, and perhaps even still exclusively for the 360.[/quote] You say "in return for the Halo franchise" like Bungie is doing MS a favor by giving Halo to MS. MS already own Halo, Bungie can't give it because it isn't their's to give. I still don't see where MS can gain anything, if even only part of this is true. It's also seems that Bungie is acting more and more like a spoiled kid. "If I don't get my way I'm going to ruin everyone's party!!!" MS might give Bungie alot of freedom, but when it comes down to it they are still a small department in a multinational corporation. A corporation that isn't it for the games, they are in it for the money!

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] dalmedya [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Agent Red A bunch of Bungie staff may be leaving to form their own company, but I highly doubt Microsoft is letting anything go. They own the Bungie name, they own the Marathon name and they own Halo.[/quote]Nobody owns Marathon, it's freeware now.[/quote] Actually, that's not true. To say that no one owns it is to say that it is public domain. It's not. Bungie has made the game freely available and has provided the source code for modification, but they have not given up their rights to the game, or the IP. If they had, any company could make a sequel without even asking.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Agent Red A bunch of Bungie staff may be leaving to form their own company, but I highly doubt Microsoft is letting anything go. They own the Bungie name, they own the Marathon name and they own Halo.[/quote]Nobody owns Marathon, it's freeware now.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] GeneralGrey Valid points, however from what I've been reading, this would apparently entail the purchasing of the rights to the name "Bungie," back from Microsoft. [/quote] And what would lead you to the illusion that the Bungie name was for sale? See, that is the part of the whole "Bungie employees bought back the Bungie name." rumor that doesn't wash -- the name isn't for sale. A bunch of Bungie staff may be leaving to form their own company, but I highly doubt Microsoft is letting anything go. They own the Bungie name, they own the Marathon name and they own Halo.

I don't really think so considering MS owns them... I would guess they do as they are told as they are "employees" of MS. MS owns Halo IP and I don't believe they own Myth or Oni so what do they have to offer Marathon..whoopie a 13 year old game.

I agree, leaving Microsoft would be a bad move. Sure they could go off and create new games. But doesn't Bungie themselves have the power to say what they want to make. It is their creation. If it doesn't workout this is America, go sue them for your stuff Bungie. But I digress, the Halo series is a great franchise and whatever you do Bungie, I'll support you! Love, AsiansOnFire