Sony is buying Bungie, the developer of Destiny and original creator of Halo
theverge.com
theverge.com
- ~2001, Bungie develops Halo as a title for the launch of Mac gaming.
- MS snipes the IP and make it an Xbox flagship instead.
- Halo evolves as the lead IP of Xbox gaming.
- ~2010, Bungie gains independence from MS, but loses Halo in the divorce.
- Bungie teams up with Activision to stay competitive.
- 2022, MS acquires Activison! Bungie hangs in the balance.
- Bungie narrowly escapes MS clutches and teams up with Sony!
Have to wonder if MS thought they would get Bungie as part of the package.
Regardless, props to them for really forging their own "Destiny" ;)
- Halo was announced in 1999, originally planned as an RTS for Windows + Mac, not for the launch of Mac gaming (not Mac only, although prior titles were focused on Mac only)
- MS purchased Bungie in 2000
- While Halo was a flagship, it was also released on Windows + Mac in the end (two years late), no IP sniping
- 2007 Bungie splits from MS to a private company (leaving the Halo franchise behind), not 2010
- 2010-2019 Bungie partners with Activision, they coop to make Destiny - there was no acquisition
- 3 years ago (2019) Bungie ends the partnership, keeps Destiny franchise
- There's no way MS considered a company that had a former relationship with an acquisition might be thrown in
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(franchise) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungie
How I read the OP (at least for this bullet) is in line with what I remember at the time: Halo was originally a Mac exclusive, and us Mac gamers (there were dozens of us, dozens!) generally perceived it as being the beginning of a golden era, where Mac would be taken as seriously as PC for games. I was absolutely heartbroken when it moved to XBox exclusive. I still ended up buying one for Halo anyway, just like everyone else.
EDIT: that being said, I was a kid at the time, and reading up on things, it was announced by Jobs during MacWorld that it was going to be Mac + Windows, so I don't know if my memory of the situation is about rumors before launch, if I misunderstood things because I was 13 at the time, or if I simply have mis-remembered because that was over 20 years ago, hah.
>> - Halo was announced in 1999, originally planned as an RTS for Windows + Mac, not for the launch of Mac gaming (not Mac only, although prior titles were focused on Mac only)
> How I read the OP (at least for this bullet) is in line with what I remember at the time: Halo was originally a Mac exclusive, and us Mac gamers (there were dozens of us, dozens!) generally perceived it as being the beginning of a golden era, where Mac would be taken as seriously as PC for games.
That's how I remember perceiving it: finally a Mac game that the PC gaming kids would be jealous of. Also, I think it had already evolved into a FPS before MS bought it (I remember thinking the vehicles would be really novel and compelling feature compared to PC FPSes).
Gaming with a Mac was a backwater in the 90s. All the popular games would get a belated Mac port, if that (e.g. by the time PC gamers moved on to Command and Conquer: Red Alert, I just was able to play the original Command and Conquer, and Red Alert was never ported at all). Bungie's games were Mac-only and good, but (for instance) by the time I played the Marathon series, the tech was dated.
Edit: corrected mistake, I was thinking about Command and Conquer/Red Alert, not Starcraft/Brood war.
Yeah, I think you're right. I was actually thinking about Command and Conquer: Red Alert. According to this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Command_%26_Conquer_me...), the original was released for PC in 1995. Red Alert and the the Mac port of the original were released in 1996. Red Alert was never ported.
Now, so much (of everything) comes out so often, in every shape and size . And so many things are extreme for extreme sake, that it's hard to have that same wonder or amazement like seeing this for the first time.
Everything is now common place. Even revolutionary experiences are so common place they no longer really register anymore.
> - 2010-2019 Bungie partners with Activision, they coop to make Destiny - there was no acquisition
I said "teamed up", not acquired..?
Another commenter pointed out that Bungie left Acti.. true, I wasn't aware of that.
> There's no way MS considered a company that had a former relationship with an acquisition might be thrown in
Often acquisitions are also about "buying the network", not just the IP.
So much of the drama in the Activision publishing contract on Destiny was that Activision intentionally got none of the IP. Bungie blamed the brutal expansion pack cadence and expansion pack prices on Activision covering their bases because they didn't have a stake as publisher in the IP. Which is probably true, but one of those "it takes two to tango" type things.
Bungie had a real nasty public break up with Activision just before Destiny 2 went free-to-play (and supposedly it is part of how they were able to get it free-to-play).
I'm sure Microsoft knew buying Activision would not give them any of Destiny or Bungie.
Microsoft's first clue that they wouldn't be getting Bungie is that Activision didn't own Bungie (it was a partnership over the Destiny IP), and that that partnership ended in 2019, a little over 3 years ago.
Contrast this to first-party Sony studios like Naughty Dog, which will take a minimum of several years to develop a game like The Last of Us or the next Uncharted. Even if you extend the moneymaking tail by trickling out DLC for a year or two after release, you're basically betting on a hit that will produce enough money at one time to justify paying several hundred salaries for several years after that. It's not hard to see why Sony would want a regular moneymaker in the difficult-to-break-into GAAS space.
And for Bungie, they've openly confirmed that they've had incubation projects for several years. Getting a gigantic publisher like Sony will give them the financial freedom they need to start building out whatever the next game is. This was basically the logic with the Activision partnership: they needed deep pockets upfront to build out the tech that powers Destiny. That done, they were able to return to their complete independence. Will it happen again?
(I don't think Bungie entirely spiritually survived the split with 343 anyway, given the rumors of all the behind-the-scenes drama in the making of Destiny, but I was rooting for their continued independence as a fascinating story, even as I stopped playing Destiny 1/2 because I hated their economy.)
That is a falsehood that a lot management at Bungie would love to keep perpetuating. A lot of the terrible and toxic management, the disrespecting of the community, and terrible game design decisions (especially around micro-transactions) all came from the senior management at Bungie.
I think that Bungie has always been really bad at project management(I think this is reflected in Halo 2, Destiny 1 and to some extent Destiny 2) which I think even extends to 343, where Halo 5 and Infinite had more than enough time to develop a reasonably featured game but couldn’t manage it. I also think that somewhere along the way they lost that skilled touch Bungie had with its community back in the day. But of course, they are still masters of the core game loop and will therefore survive. I hear they’ve improved in recent years - that’s nice, but I’d never play a new Bungie game again.
(I play a lot of Destiny)
Edit: seems im wrong, apologies.
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Q. Bungie has future games in development, will they now become PlayStation exclusives?
No. We want the worlds we are creating to extend to anywhere people play games. We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community.
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Although I certainly won't take a wager on that still being true in 3-4 years.
But whether further-future releases look more like their "cross-platform" nature is just Playstation and PC, or there's Playstation timed exclusivity or exclusive features... I mean you'd have to think it's pretty likely.
> No. We want the worlds we are creating to extend to anywhere people play games. We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community.
Hardware accessories (e.g. controllers) are a bit better.
Assuming you can produce hits, first-party IP has always been the most profitable part of the value chain. But having 90% of your ecosystem come from 1P (like Nintendo) limits the size of the ecosystem.
Xbox traditionally had 30-40% of the overall content revenue come from 1P IP, and 60-70% were from 3P. Sony perhaps a bit more than that. Both were ecosystem plays.
It seems like both ecosystems are recognizing that they need exclusives to sustain their franchises.