Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Yeah, Bungie Made Games Not Called Halo...

With news of Bungie's publishing deal with Activision making headlines on Video Game sites all over the net, I remembered a time when Bungie was a little game developer making first person shooters for the Mac. Oh yeah, if you didn't know, Bungie created what is regarded as the father of the now legendary Halo franchise. Bungie's early history primarily includes the first person shooter Marathon and it's sequels, a real time strategy series called Myth, and Oni, a third person action game for a variety of platforms. After Oni's release, Microsoft acquired Bungie and from there Bungie's next project, a first person shooter called Halo was turned from a multiplatform release to the "killer app" for Microsoft's upcoming Xbox console. The rest is history, but imagine for a moment if Microsoft hadn't bought Bungie; the ramifications of that move would have been immense. Halo would have been available on the Playstation 2, Gamecube, and Xbox. The Xbox probably wouldn't have sold nearly the number of units it sold without that game as a showcase for the hardware. Most importantly, there would probably be no Xbox 360. The bigwigs at Microsoft have a lot to think about with Halo ending and them not having Bungie in their back pocket, especially considering they have another system to think about soon. So, if you're an Xbox fanboy, thank Bill Gates for buying Bungie in 2000, it gave you something to be a douchebag about.



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