"Microsoft allegedly wanted Bungie to devote itself solely to making Halo games,"

Are Halo games, Military Programs? What do they show us we can do/expect?

Are such games a Subliminal Assault on the Mind of Players in the Game..... Presenting a Virtual World which they can then make Real.

Or would you prefer to make the Real World, Virtual, for them to XPlore and dDiscover.?

Either Choice is Available. Perhaps they should be Run In Parallels.

Ruby in the Red Dress on the Inside Rails?

OligARGs, Mr President/Comrade?

Hush now.

The comment from amanfromMars almsot made some sort of sence to me... I think my dosage may be to high, or his is to low.

Aren't Bungie entirely owned by Microsoft? In which case this rumour is dead in the water.

I suppose there could be a developer exodus from Bungie, leading to the formation of separate studio similar to the Rare/Free Radical situation, but that's hardly the same.

The Dirtbox360 has reached the peak of what it can achieve, and other consoles are in for the long run...

"Rumours are blazing online that Microsoft and Bungie Studios are about to call it a day after the final game in the Halo trilogy has finally hit the shelves"

No wonder. We waited how long for that? Didn't move the game on that far, really, did it? GRAW2, COD4 and others are showing the way. This just looks poor in comparison. IMHO, most over-rated "event" ever.

This must be some strange new usage of the word "split" that I was not previously aware of.

Whattttt? Disney bought Pixar outright in 2006 after a couple of years of Jobs and Eisner niggling at each other.

"The games developer was bought by Microsoft......"

That being so, how would they split? The staff could leave, but MS would still own the company. It also makes the use of the word "partnership" a little stretched.

It all seems a little contradictory to me.

TeeCee

Strange person posts all over the net.. appears to be called Graham though. Posts elsewhere under the guise of ulstergraham.. dig about and you can probably find out who it/he is properly..

Nice work Mark, when's your 12th Birthday coming up?

Not really effected by this announcement... Im too busy playing team slayer ...

Good. Maybe this means they will finally be allowed to create a sequal to Bungie's first game release, Oni. The Halo series is good, but the ports to Windows still have that Xbox feel. Ick.

Before Oni was Myth and before that was the excellent Mac-Only Marathon and a few others before that on the Mac.

It broke my heart when the evil empire bought my lovely Bungie.

Ha! I got it that time...

"Ruby in the Red Dress on the Inside Rails?"

Gave yourself away with that one! : )

In any CasE, a Tip of the Quantum Hat to you sir!

"I suppose there could be a developer exodus from Bungie, leading to the formation of separate studio similar to the Rare/Free Radical situation, but that's hardly the same."

Similar though if they just changed the names on the doors and building....with MS picking up the Tab for Spending on ITs Drivers.

Blizzard North, the team behind the famous Diablo games, quit en masse after a series of creative differences. Many of them went on to found Flagship Studios, where the promising Hellgate:London is from. If it comes to it, I can well imagine a stack of resignations landing on someone's desk as they'll form up on their own again.

Personally, I'd wish them good luck with it.

Most of the original Bungie cast left after Halo:CE was released.

The remainder sans two left after Halo2.

So, Halo3 was done by a completely different group than Halo

"The Dirtbox360 has reached the peak of what it can achieve, and other consoles are in for the long run..."

If, by "other consoles," you mean the Nintendo Wii, you may be right. On the other hand, the PS3 has about as much chance to dominate the market as an English wine in Paris. It's too expensive, too tied to Sony (the company that brought you rootkits on both audio CDs *and* USB thumbdrives), and insufficiently supported by third-party game studios.

But I would expect the 360 to continue to hang neck-and-neck with the Wii for several more years. Microsoft has more cash reserves than most small nations; they can afford to continue taking losses on the consoles while raking in 85% profit margin on the games.

It was Halo MS needed, not Bungie. Despite being part of MS, Bungie seem to have continued to operate as a separate organisation after the sell-out. Perhaps they demanded a 7-year sentence instead of life.

Rumours are the break has already happened; announcement held back.

...was ported to the PC eventually.

I too find this hard to swallow, at least in the sense that there will be an independent entity with the Bungie name. The original e-mail claimed Microsoft was going to let them go out of gratitude for all of the success Bungie brought them. Yeah...

Aside:

Personally, I think Amanfrommars is using these posts as codes to control a vast international botnet. He is ever so endearing, though. Reg comments almost wouldn't be Reg comments at all without him. His posts do make sense, in a certain sort of way.

If Bungie split and decided to make the whole Halo series on one disc such as...mmm...Blu-Ray and used an updated graphics engine and environment?

It would be an instant classic to do this on PS3 ^^

Actually, though I liked Bungie's earlier creations, I don't exactly like them now because they are responsible for the Xbox survival. The damned box was a joke even before the thing was released; I remember people joking on "duuuuuude, I dont want a BSOD right when I'm about to kill the final boss duuuuuude!!". That, coupled with gigantic controllers, and the dominance of PSX and PS2 made it a sure failure; even the PSX was getting more sales.

Then came Halo, which blew away the minds of many PC gamers (FPS were not really a console seller) who ran and bought Xboxen to play the game. Thus the dying console had a revival.

Without Halo, the Xbox would have gone the way of the Apple Pippin, 3d0 and such brethren.

So now the BBC have it as 'Breaking News' that this has just been announced. I guess the rumour wasn't too far from the truth then :)

To those who said 'Microsoft owns Bungie so it can't happen' you could probably use a lesson in the world of business. Companies can be owned by other companies without becoming a part of that company. If management of the smaller company decide that visions no longer concur then the larger company takes the decision either to boot out the dissenters (usually a bad idea) or to let the company fly freely with some kind of 'future collaboration' brief which makes everybody happy. Kinda.