|
|
INTERVIEW: Bungie Talks Microsoft Split |
|
INTERVIEW: Bungie Talks Microsoft Split |
Brian Jarrard, franchise and community director for Bungie explains how a phenomenally successful wholly-owned studio can up and walk away from its parent. Next-Gen's interview within...
Today, Microsoft confirmed rumors that Halo developer Bungie would be amicably breaking off from its software giant parent. Jarrard talks about the snowballing rumors, the future of Bungie, development for other platforms and more…
Next-Gen: What was it like sitting back and watching all of these rumors unfold on the Internet. There are some people that called it “ludicrous," even calling people that simply entertained the idea “suckers.” Meanwhile, what was Bungie doing while this was all going on?
Jarrard: We’ve kind of been watching from the sidelines. It’s been kind of entertaining at times. I’ve read some pretty awesome forum posts with people that were sure that this was nothing but an Internet hoax. It's funny now to watch them eat their words.
Mostly, in the past couple days, we’ve been frantically working with our friends at Microsoft to get all of our ducks in a row and get all these last few deal points wrapped up and get to a point where both sides were comfortable announcing this to the world. There’s just been a lot of last minute meetings and discussions taking place just to get everything ironed out.
We’ve been frantically trying to do that in the midst of the Halo 3 launch and trying to get our whole studio back in operation again.
What exactly is the next step after you’ve made this announcement?
Realistically, in the immediate future, I don’t expect really much to change at all to be honest. We have people right now that are already at work—it’s just another day in the office. Our immediate projects that we’re committed to like the Halo 3 content, working with Peter Jackson on the new Halo project, these are things that were already well-underway before the announcement. We’re going to continue to work on these projects with Microsoft acting as our publisher.
In a lot of ways, day-in, day-out, life isn’t going to change in the short term. But the potential for what we’re doing months and years from now is dramatically increased. Who’s to say where that will lead? Right now, we’ve got some projects that we’re working hard to get out the door.
How exactly does this whole “split” work out? How does a studio that was acquired in 2000, a wholly-owned studio, just get up and take off with its name and studio intact?
Well, it was an interesting set of discussions, as you can imagine. It’s been going on for quite a while. Ultimately, it was something that we had to do as a group to creatively continue to expand and continue what we want to do. As [Bungie’s Jason Jones] so aptly put it, we’re a shark that just has to keep moving to stay alive, otherwise we felt that we’d start to stagnate and potentially lose interest, and maybe even lose some of our teams.
Fortunately for us, Microsoft realized that, and they’ve been very accommodating to help us work through this and come to an arrangement that ultimately is going to reinvigorate and empower Bungie to continue to do great games and make great games for Microsoft’s platforms, as well as getting more Halo games to come from our studio as well.
At the same time, it gives us the freedom down the road to explore other opportunities and challenge ourselves and keep us engaged in what we do. It was about putting together a deal where both groups could get what they’re after.
NEXT: Bungie thought of splitting after Halo 2
Did this idea of breaking away come during the development of Halo 3, or possibly before?
Without getting into too many specifics, as we’re not at liberty to discuss the contractual terms, this is something that obviously some people here have been thinking about for a long time. I would say probably coming off of Halo 2 going into Halo 3 was the first time that kind of became something that was realistically attainable. Like I said, Microsoft was very accommodating and willing to work with us on this.
It seems like the word “accommodating” is kind of an understatement. You guys just made them $300 million.
[Laughs] Yeah, I mean to be fair to them too, they’ve been a great publisher and a great partner, and they’ll continue to be. We’re extremely happy with the Halo franchise as a whole, but some of the credit definitely has to go to them as well for just being a great publisher and supporting the game and marketing it. It has been a partnership, and it will continue to be a partnership.
This also means that Bungie can go multiplatform. We know that Bungie will be concentrating on the Xbox 360, but has Bungie been able to tinker around with other platforms? What do you think of PS3, Wii and the handhelds?
To be honest, we haven’t really put any serious thought into that at all right now. Typically speaking, that opportunity could exist for us down the road and possibly those prospects are exciting for some of our engineers, but on the other hand, we’ve only made one game for the 360 and that game happened to turn out very, very well. The platform’s been really good to us, Microsoft has been really good to us. So for now we’re just taking it all in stride. We’ve got our hands full with some 360 commitments and that’s going to keep us occupied for quite a while.
Beyond that, anything’s possible, but it’s too early to say. We don’t have any dev kits in the building for other platforms. There’s nothing like that going on right now.
This may be premature, but when are we going to find out about Bungie’s next project?
You’ll find out as soon as we’re ready to show and talk about something. Bungie is notoriously tight-lipped and “when it’s ready it’s ready” is kind of our mentality. I think the first thing that you’ll hear about, hopefully soon, is our collaboration with Peter Jackson and this new Halo experience, because that’s a real project that’s had real progress. It’s pretty exciting.
Beyond that, we have a group of people who are in the really fun exploration and incubation phase and just testing out concepts and ideas. Eventually those guys will land on what we think will be our next big thing.
News-Source: http://www.next-gen.biz
| |
|
|
|
Related Stories |
|
|
Most Popular |
|
|
|
Rate this Article |
|
| | |
| Xbox Download Stats | | | Site Statistics
| |
HQ Online Statistics Members: 2 | Guests: 8,896 | Xbox Live Tags: 4,376
| | | |
Forums Active Users: 8333
| News Active Users: 128
| Your Account Active Users: 126
| Xbox Games Active Users: 53
| Profile Active Users: 47
| Downloads Active Users: 46
| Home Active Users: 38
| Xbox Homebrew Active Users: 31
| Xbox Tutorials Active Users: 26
| Active Users: 17
|
| View More Detailed Statistics |
| Popular Xbox Games | |
MVP Baseball 2005 Page Views: 294,528 Level the playing field with the EA SPORTS Hitter's Eye in MVP Baseball 2005. With unprecedented control of your at-bat, the ability to move in the batter's box and the power to read the pitch, master.. | | More Xbox Games | | HQ Network Affiliates | |
| Xbox-Hq.Com - Archived News | |
| Wednesday, March 20 | | MLB The Show 24 launches on Xbox Game Pass published by: BigJ | Page Views: 28 | Comments: 0 |
Tuesday, March 19 | | Discover the Sound of Life in The Lullaby of published by: BigJ | Page Views: 29 | Comments: 0 |
Monday, March 18 | | FLIPGO: A portable dual monitor that you can published by: BigJ | Page Views: 49 | Comments: 0 |
Thursday, March 14 | | Highwater launches this week on Xbox X|S, XB1 published by: BigJ | Page Views: 38 | Comments: 0 |
| JSAUX’S Black MODCASE for the ROG Ally Is Ava published by: BigJ | Page Views: 39 | Comments: 0 |
Wednesday, March 13 | | Paper Ghost Stories: Third Eye Open coming to published by: BigJ | Page Views: 43 | Comments: 0 |
Tuesday, March 12 | | Night Slashers: Remake confirmed for XBOX, Pl published by: BigJ | Page Views: 53 | Comments: 0 |
| RuneScape developer Jagex joins CVC Capital P published by: BigJ | Page Views: 62 | Comments: 0 |
Monday, March 11 | | Dark JRPG Graphic Adventure 'Neon Blood' debu published by: BigJ | Page Views: 45 | Comments: 0 |
Friday, March 08 | | WWII-based strategy epic Classified: France ' published by: BigJ | Page Views: 49 | Comments: 0 |
| Sonic X Shadow Generations hits Xbox One, Xbo published by: BigJ | Page Views: 57 | Comments: 0 |
Thursday, March 07 | | Explore the World of Ink Painting in Realm of published by: BigJ | Page Views: 47 | Comments: 0 |
Wednesday, March 06 | | Barton Lynch Pro Surfing Update v1.07 is LIVE published by: BigJ | Page Views: 47 | Comments: 0 |
| FALLEN LEAF Teams Up with STUDIOS EXTRAORDINA published by: BigJ | Page Views: 57 | Comments: 0 |
Tuesday, March 05 | | Goons: Legends & Mayhem: Meet the Cat Goon an published by: BigJ | Page Views: 53 | Comments: 0 |
Monday, March 04 | | Hauntii hits Xbox Game Pass for console and P published by: BigJ | Page Views: 48 | Comments: 0 |
| REVEIL launches this week on Xbox Series, PS5 published by: BigJ | Page Views: 57 | Comments: 0 |
Friday, March 01 | | Dark Atlas: Infernum launching on Xbox, PlayS published by: BigJ | Page Views: 70 | Comments: 0 |
| Towerful Defense: A Rogue TD confirmed for XB published by: BigJ | Page Views: 52 | Comments: 0 |
Thursday, February 29 | | The House of Tesla announced for Consoles, iO published by: BigJ | Page Views: 46 | Comments: 0 |
Wednesday, February 28 | | Martha Is Dead: The Terrifying Game That's Ge published by: BigJ | Page Views: 56 | Comments: 0 |
Tuesday, February 27 | | WWE 2K24 launches in March for Xbox X|S, Xbox published by: BigJ | Page Views: 65 | Comments: 0 |
| Hex Gambit: Respawned hits Xbox X|S, XB1, PS4 published by: BigJ | Page Views: 57 | Comments: 0 |
| Manic Mechanics lands in March on Xbox One, X published by: BigJ | Page Views: 78 | Comments: 0 |
Monday, February 26 | | Realm of Ink's Developer Walkthrough Reveals published by: BigJ | Page Views: 82 | Comments: 0 |
| Legion Go Gets a New Storage Bag from JSAUX published by: BigJ | Page Views: 60 | Comments: 0 |
| Xbox One vs PlayStation 4: The Ultimate Gamin published by: BigJ | Page Views: 80 | Comments: 0 |
Friday, February 23 | | Dead Tomb is now available for Xbox and Ninte published by: BigJ | Page Views: 60 | Comments: 0 |
| The Zebra-Man! is coming soon for Xbox, PlayS published by: BigJ | Page Views: 64 | Comments: 0 |
Thursday, February 22 | | Watch the New DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO Tra published by: BigJ | Page Views: 76 | Comments: 0 |
Wednesday, February 21 | | Early 2024 physical release confirmed for Bla published by: BigJ | Page Views: 77 | Comments: 0 |
| Reverse-city builder, Flooded hits on Xbox an published by: BigJ | Page Views: 59 | Comments: 0 |
Tuesday, February 20 | | EARTHLOCK 2 Unveils New Details On Desert Shi published by: BigJ | Page Views: 58 | Comments: 0 |
Monday, February 19 | | TEVI launches digitally on Xbox Series X|S an published by: BigJ | Page Views: 64 | Comments: 0 |
Thursday, February 15 | | Narrative psycho-thriller game REVEIL launche published by: BigJ | Page Views: 95 | Comments: 0 |
Wednesday, February 14 | | Manage Your Own Prison in Prison Architect 2 published by: BigJ | Page Views: 70 | Comments: 0 |
| Red Art Games Announces First Physical Xbox G published by: BigJ | Page Views: 57 | Comments: 0 |
Tuesday, February 13 | | Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Launches i published by: BigJ | Page Views: 69 | Comments: 0 |
Monday, February 12 | | Play & Win with VersusNow: The Next-Gen Strea published by: BigJ | Page Views: 103 | Comments: 0 |
| Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 launches Day One on published by: BigJ | Page Views: 71 | Comments: 0 |
News Archive
| |
|
|