After days of speculation and rumors the news is out, reported in Variety, Bungie Studios shocked the industry by making a deal with Microsoft to become an independent studio.
Microsoft bought Bungie back in 2000 to make HALO exclusive to it's Xbox platform. Top execs at Bungie and some outside investors will now control Bungie, while Microsoft will have a small "minority"share. Microsoft still retains all rights to HALO and most likely any future sequels will not include input from Bungie. Ensemble Studios is busy working on a spin-off game titled "HALO WARS."
Bungie in the meantime will still colloborate with Peter Jackson on an upcoming interactive project set in the "HALO" universe.
Brian Jarrard, Bungie spokesman, said "Ultimately, Microsoft will decide when and where they want to extend the franchise, but we're not entirely walking away from HALO."
Surely to make MS bashers seeth, Microsoft with it's minority stake still has the right to a "first look" to publish future Bungie projects. Bungie intends to remain independent and controll the intellectual property rights for any future games it develops. Rumor has it that the top talents at Bungie got fed up making hundreds of millions for Microsoft and were itching to leave and start their own company, so for MS it was a smart move, better to have a small stake in a proven design company than to be an outsider waiting in line, it wouldn't do good for MS' ego.
