Well, what do you know? Turns out one rumour ended up being real. Bungie has split from big daddy Microsoft and is on its way to become an independent republic company. Of course, Microsoft won’t let one of its slaves off that easy.
It still maintains an equity interest in Bungie and “at the same time continuing its long-standing publishing agreement between Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie for the Microsoft-owned “Halo” intellectual property as well as other future properties developed by Bungie”, whatever the hell that means.
Harold Ryan, speaking from Bungie’s fortress said that their relationship with Microsoft went pretty well and that they will concentrate their next titles on Microsoft® platforms. To cut a long story short, Bungie’s next games will be for the Xbox 360 (and whatever other consoles Microsoft spits out). This means that Bungie is still hugging Microsoft and will probably not let go for quite a while.
Shane Kim, corporate VP at Microsoft Game Studios, said that Microsoft appreciates the work their little slave has done for them and that they will further the Halo franchise with more collaborations, one notable name being Peter Jackson. Of course, no movie specifics were announced. As you can guess, Microsoft talked more about the franchise Bungie created for them rather than Bungie itself.
We hope Bungie evolves to make more kickass games, and we sure as hell hope they move on to something new and original and stop making more armoured-guy-kills-aliens games, please. Thanks.