Megaton News

Yes it’s official you should believe all internet rumors posted on any random newspapers user blogs. From a Microsoft press release:

Microsoft Corp. today announced a plan for Bungie Studios, the developers of the Halo franchise, to embark on a path to become an independent company. Microsoft will retain an equity interest in Bungie 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.

Bungie Studios will remain in its current location in Kirkland, Wash.

From Game Informer:

Our source stated that Bungie is “tired of Making Halo, and didn’t want to do future Halo games.” For an unstated, but significant amount of money, Bungie shareholders bought the studio name back from Microsoft. Our source also revealed that even though Microsoft will retain the rights to Halo, Microsoft also has “the right of first refusal on future games.” This means that Microsoft has the first shot at publishing Bungie’s future titles. How this will come into play if Bungie decides they want future game X to appear on the PlayStation 3 and Wii alongside an Xbox 360 release will make things quite interesting.
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After every Halo release, members of Bungie have departed to form their own development houses such as Certain Affinity and Wideload Studios. Why would Microsoft actually let go of the company who single-handedly made Xbox what it is today is the big question. And for that, Microsoft nor Bungie have revealed a true answer.

So Maybe this isn’t all bullshit.

Well this rumor is nearly as ridiculous as the title, the rumor being Microsoft is “letting Bungie go”. Bungie the makers of Halo 3, the Bungie that Microsoft owns 100% of, Microsoft is just letting them go.

It started today with this idiotic blog post by a user (anyone anywhere with internet access) on the Seatle Post-Intelligencer website:

Bungie Leaving Microsoft!! You heard it here first folks
A friend of mine who has someone close that works at Bungie has just been dying to tell me a secret about their future. Since the NDA officially expire today the sent me and email with the details. I have full faith in this contact.

The email is as follows :

“So heres my big secret. You should google Bungie + Microsoft + separation this week.
You know that big ol BILLION dollar franchise Bungie has created for Microsoft, to show their appreciate Microsoft is letting Bungie leave. Of course Microsoft gets to keep all rights to the Halo franchise, but as today Bungie no longer part of Microsoft. Ask anyone who works there to search the global address book, they’re no longer in there. Microsoft was supposed to release the press release today but if they wait till the 10/6 the impact wont effect the quarterly results. However today is the actual official date and the day the NDAs expire, however you still didn’t hear this from me.”

“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 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.”

This certainly seemed to be BS, but no one at MS or Bungie commented all day so Kotaku decided it was worth their time to ask:

Those rumors surrounding a Bungie departure from Microsoft sure sound fishy, so we got in touch with some folks who might know a thing or two about it. We were hoping for either a “Yes, it’s true. You’ll find the details of the settlement in the attached PDF” or “Of course it’s not true. Don’t be ridiculous.” Instead we got a double barrel blast of non-confirmation.

The response from a Bungie source? “Talk to your Edelman rep.”

The response from Edelman, Microsoft’s PR firm? “There’s been no such announcement. We continue to celebrate the tremendous success of the global phenomenon that is Halo 3.”

In the meantime, we continue to get e-mails with friend of a friend sourced factoids and ones with none too subtle hints on the matter. We’re drowning in the winking emoticons!

As I wrote earlier, it sounds suspect—hence the rumor tag—but with the closing of FASA Studio, the developer behind Shadowrun, and the acquisition of Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre Creations by Activision, yet another ripple in the Microsoft Game Studios pool of insanity wouldn’t forcibly knock our socks off at this point.

This is not impossible, stranger things have happened, etc. However this is in all likelihood complete bullshit.