The current executive vice-president of Gaming at Microsoft and head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, recently said he believes Microsoft could have kept Bungie, developers of the original Halo.
Microsoft acquired game developer Bungie back in 2000 before its release of the massively successful Halo: Combat Evolved. The game changed the future of gaming and put Microsoft’s new venture at the time, the Xbox, on the map. It also gave Bungie some much-deserved positive attention. Splitting from Microsoft in 2007, Bungie went on to continue its success by becoming an independent developer and created more hit games like Destiny and Destiny 2.
Bungie is currently gearing up to celebrate its 30th anniversary, and creating loads of new content for Destiny 2 to celebrate the big day. Likewise, Microsoft’s Halo is still going strong with its soon-to-be-released title Halo Infinite on December 8 and has released many other titles from the franchise since Bungie’s departure. Bungie and Microsoft’s split hasn’t seemed to hinder either company as seen with the major success each has experienced since. As Bungie has been a frequent subject of conversation of late due to its upcoming anniversary, Phil Spencer commented on whether he thought the two companies could have still been partnered today.
In an interview with Axios, Spencer detailed the history of Bungie and Xbox. The interviewer asked the Xbox Boss whether he thought the split was inevitable. Spencer replied that he felt the Microsoft of today could have held onto Bungie saying, “Could we do it today? I think we could.” However, he went on to explain that he understood why Bungie’s departure occurred saying, “At the time they had big ambitions. They had sold their business for a certain amount of money.” Spencer admitted that Microsoft received most of the praise over the success of Halo and the developers could have been inclined to want more of a starring role in their next venture, Destiny. Spencer said on the subject, “If you’re saying, ‘Hey, I think I’ve got another one of those in me. I want to really take another chance,’ I can understand the allure of doing that as an independent company.”
The history of Microsoft and Bungie has been a hot topic recently with rumors that a collaboration between Halo and Destiny 2 may be in the works. Screenshots spotted by a fan suggest this is happening soon in celebration of Bungie’s 30th Anniversary but nothing has been confirmed yet. Either way, the history of the two companies and what could have been is an interesting subject to ponder.