Bungie has officially left the Microsoft mothership. That is, Bungie is now an independent studio!
In a very surprising move, Bungie, makers of the game everyone and their grandmother is still playing, Halo 3, has officially announced that it is splitting away from Microsoft, who has owned the company entirely since they bought them out in 2000, before Halo was a house-hold name.
The company will now be known as “Bungie LLC” but Microsoft will continue to hold a minority stake in the company and both will continue their “long-standing publishing agreements”, which means that you can expect to see more Halo titles published by Microsoft on Xbox systems, as well as other games made by Bungie and published by Microsoft. Bungie will also remain in it’s current location (Kirkland, Washington) and will apparently retain it’s focus primarily on Microsoft platforms (notice that key-word “primarily”).
“While we are supporting Bungie’s desire to return to its independent roots, we will continue to invest in our Halo entertainment property with Bungie and other partners, such as Peter Jackson, on a new interactive series set in the Halo universe,” said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios.
And in regards to the move back to independence, Harold Ryan, Bungie’s studio head, commented, “This…will enable us to expand both creatively and organizationally.” And the Bungie founder, Jason Jones, added, “Bungie is like a shark. We have to keep moving to survive. We have to continually test ourselves, or we might as well be dolphins. Or manatees.”
This move is very curious considering the huge recent success of Halo 3, although they definitely left on a high note. Personally, I am hoping this will free up Bungie to work some of it’s magic on the Nintendo Wii. Could you imagine that?
Speaking of Halo 3’s success . . . The game is such that it is even topping the sales charts in Japan!
Media Create has been following the sales figures of the game, which was released in Japan on September 27th, and for the week of September 24th to 30th, Halo 3 shot it’s way directly to the number one spot! This is the first time an Xbox 360 exclusive title has debuted at #1 on the Japanese charts. Halo 3 has sold 58,672 units in it’s first week on sale in Japan, some 3,000 more units than Halo 3’s closest competitor on the chart. And naturally, the Xbox 360 system itself also saw a spike in sales due to the release of Halo 3. Xbox 360 unit sales went up from 1,687 systems sold the week before, to 5,215 units sold.
Everybody is just Halo-fighting now aren’t they. 😆