Read it.

Interesting news. Wonder what this will mean for Mac gaming, if anything?

Oh you beat me by half an hour!

Here's what I read.

Wow! This is the biggest news since Wideload's split. I think Bungie just jumped up several pegs on the list of companies I'd love to work for.

I don't think it'll mean much of anything. Most of the articles I've read about this whole thing indicate that Bungie is still going to be developing for the XBox and Microsoft for the foreseeable future. Down the road a few years, though, who knows?

Bungie did a Macworld interview and they mentioned that they would make mac games... sometime.

It doesn't mean jack for Mac, it isn't worth the effort to develop for Mac, and if I recall when Halo hit the PC it hit the Mac too, albeit at a much higher price. Not to mention that Bungie is still closely tied to MS.

I still laugh that for years MS had a significant stake in Apple until the feds made them sell it off.

Marathon 4 for mac!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, right. But I can dream, can't I?

AARG! Beaten to the post.

Yeah, that's pretty much the feeling I got. Almost all Bungie's employees have joined since Halo too, so Xbox/Xbox 360 is probably where all of their knowledge is. But hey, it can't be a bad thing for Mac gamers and certainly is a good thing for Bungie fans in general.

Wow. This is awesome, even if they'll still be developing stuff with Microsoft for the time being.

This is wonderful. I really think half the reason halo 2 and now in some ways 3 were such lackluster games was becuase they just had to be rushed out in time rather than given the proper work they needed.

An interview with Frank O'Connor revealed that the only major IP that Bungie itself still owns is Marathon.

*Crosses fingers* please please please please!

But I think they're probably going to go with a new IP this time around.

Squeeeeee!

In other interviews they said that they are working on *gasp* another Halo game next, specifically the mysterious "Peter Jackson project." But after that my money'd be on an entirely new universe, yup.

Wonderful! I'm glad to hear that!

I always find it ironic that Halo 2 is thought of as rushed and Halo 1 is thought of as the perfect game when Halo 1 was likely just as rushed because of the whole having to remake it for the Xbox thing.

If anything Halo 2's problem wasn't so much of a time issue as it was a planning issue. It seems to me that what really happened was that they tried to do too much, that they tried to make Halo 3 on the original Xbox. But then about half way through they realized that it wasn't going to work scrapped everything and did their best to release something good in the time they had left.

Fortinately they learned from their mistake and did things right with Halo 3.

Pity. But I'm not surprised in the least that Microsoft is holding on to Halo, but it would have been nice for Bungie to get all of its rightful IP intact.

The first thing I thought of when I played through halo 3 was "this is what halo 2 was hyped up to be!" with the "promise" of defending earth for most of the game, etc.....

Both halo 1 and 2 were rushed, shown (in halo 1) by the last few levels being mostly the same as the first few. Halo 2, it was shown by the cliffhanger ending, and the cut "Earth_Ark_09" level.

Halo 3, I think, combined the best moments from both of the games, like the scarab fight (which was a lot cooler in Halo 3), seeing the Ark for the first time (reminiscent of Delta Halo), storming the beach in The Covenant (like the Silent Cartographer), and who could forget the warthog race against time in the last level of Halo 3. I do wish they put in a timer, though, but the scenery did enough to convey the "I have to get off this thing, now" feeling.

All in all, I'm glad bungie learned from it's mistakes in Halo 3.

It seems like the only IP microsoft is taking is Halo. Oni/myth are owned by take2. So the only major brand that leaves them is marathon. I'd imagine they still have PiD and gnop and all that early stuff still though, they don't say anything to the contrary in the article.

edit: oh, and Bungie has explicitly said that they retained ownership of the Pimps at Sea franchise, so no worries there.

Never has a severed Bungie tether been such good news. (rimshot)

Agreed. Can´t see anything positive coming out of this in the near future (and I´m sceptical about the long run). Haven´t a lot of old employees jumped ship long since anyhow? Nah, the Bungie of old will not be reborn or anything.

If Marathon 4 comes out, it'd better be good. It should also have the same universe and story, like maybe the player being a Jjaro, or even the Marine coming back to help the S'pht fight off some other alien race on their new homeworld.

I really doubt a Marathon 4 would be up to the quality of the first 3. Didn't most of the marathon designers leave when bungie joined MS?

It would be nice if they made another Oni, that game had the perfect design for mixed hand to hand and shooting combat. Too bad take two has it now.

Oh man, who else is totally stoked about a sequel to Gnop!?

I hope they actually make a Pimps at Sea. But really, new shooter franchise on the Mac, or even an RTS (I'd be rather curious).

Man, I dunno why people bitch so much about Halo 2. I guess it was a bit lackluster, but my roommate and I still had a hell of a time going through on coop, it was more consistent than Halo 1, and the story was fairly interesting. Why did a cliffhanger piss everyone off so much? I kind of expected that from a middle chapter...

In other news, I'd really like to see other things from Bungie. In particular a continuation of the Myth franchise that isn't a half-assed bug-fest (I think the Myth 3 community patches regrettably made the game even less fun and halved its performance), as unlikely as it would be for them to re-acquire the rights. Wouldn't mind an Oni sequel either, as much as everyone shits on it. It had a very fun fighting system, and a story that I wouldn't mind seeing a followup of.

I also don't quite understand why everyone wants Marathon 4. Yeah, the first three were great, but their success was based on things that are no longer commercially viable, like terminals. Nevermind that they were 2.5d. How the hell would you meaningfully modernize the gameplay?

It'd be easy to do using the same cutscenes + voiceover like in the halo games. I think halo 3 has some terminal screens too.

Yep, Halo 3 has a few terminals scattered here and there.

Marathon 4 spoilers:

The AI Leela returns, this time as a scantily clad hologram with a bust size that apparently increases in each cutscene.

Our heroic cyborg, voiced by Vin Diesel, finally reveals his origins. His "parents" were scientists who designed him as a weapon to destroy the Pfhor but were tragically murdered by their treacherous lab assistant who was actually a Pfhor in an extremely poor but unnoticed disguise, going by the alias "Hugh Man".

In a climatic final battle, he destroys the W'rkncacnter using a mythical energy sword that everyone in the universe has heard legends of but have not seen fit to mention until now.

After the credits the Super W'rkncacnter is revealed, flying towards Earth.

*punches the air*

That's common knowledge. I'm thinking something more along the lines of Zelda meets The Matrix.