Bungie Jumping: Microsoft Drops Developer, Keeps Its Halo

Microsoft publicly said seeya to its software sugar daddy today, but retains an "undisclosed equity interest in Halo developer Bungie," according to our internal news service, confirming what some have believed was imminent all week. Microsoft also retains full intellectual property rights to the "Halo" franchise, though Bungie "will continue to work on Xbox 360 games" and, ostensibly, the inevitable Halo 4. Make of that what you will.

The gossip mills went ballistic on Monday when 8BitJoystick claimed a friend of a friend who worked at Bungie revealed Microsoft and its moneybags design posse were parting ways. The unconfirmed reason? Microsoft's heavy hand, according to the purported internal email posted by 8BitJoystick. Here's a bit from that email:

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 they are with the profits (comparable to the rest of the industry). So as of today they are their own independent entity. They'll probably make Halo 4 for Microsoft, however hey [sic] are also free to create new intellectual properties for whatever system they want. (Even though they prefer the xbox platform)... What a way to say thank you.

Assuming any of that's accurate, what's not clear to me is who's supposed to be thanking whom. Did Microsoft drop Bungie because Microsoft was tired of the grumbling? Did Bungie want to leave Microsoft? If Bungie's still on Halo 4, won't both sides still have to deal with whatever stress brought them to this point? Will Bungie go multi-platform, now that they're (once again) an independent entity?

Answer to that last: Count on it. The press release today is full of predictable "the couple has split, but remains close friends" glad-handing, but Bungie writing lead Frank O'Connor says "in theory" the company will write games for non-Xbox consoles.

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