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Apple Almost Acquired 'Halo' Developer Bungie in 2000

mabaker said:
I still think you can’t play Halo properly on a damn CONTROLLER on the Xbox. It smells ridiculous.
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It does! Halo was a great game (wasn't it released for mac as well?), Halo 2 was ported so badly it was practically unplayable (oh, wait, and you needed 'Vista' for extra graphics support - although it ran better on xp once cracked).
It was such a fail that after this no games for Windows were released...

Halo remains an xbox phenomenon however.
 
silexh said:
It does! Halo was a great game (wasn't it released for mac as well?), Halo 2 was ported so badly it was practically unplayable (oh, wait, and you needed 'Vista' for extra graphics support - although it ran better on xp once cracked).
It was such a fail that after this no games for Windows were released...

Halo remains an xbox phenomenon however.
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Whats so bad with the Halo 2 pc version? I have never had problems with it.
 
I think, too, that Microsoft did more for Bungie than Apple could have. However, their exit from the Mac market left a void that other developers could have filled in if the money was there. Perhaps the reason why Steam came to Mac (and maybe more later) recently is that the money is finally there and diversification is profitable again. With a few strategic moves by Apple in the hardware/software we could all enjoy some good times in Mac gaming again like when Pathways and Marathon were big.
 
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Dooger said:
Hey Stevo, Epic Fail!
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Why would you say that?

Does it make any difference?

Look at Apple now. Today they own mobile gaming, among other things. Not a bad trade-off.

Fun thread, but useless in light of what happened after Apple lost Bungie. Looks like whatever Steve did, it was the right thing to do.

"If my mother had wheels I'd be a wagon" is the appropriate response.
 
I guess what would of happened was that Halo might have been a Mac game, and just died a slow death, with only a fraction of the players that HAVE playes Halo would ever have seen it.

The Xbox and Halo both went hand in hand in getting the game to the mass marketplace.

Apple is just no into games, and shows no sign of changing that now.

The sad thing (with the new Mac App Store) is, it's starting to feel like they have REALLY GIVEN UP, and we are going to start seeing iOS Games on the Mac which to be honest is an insult to such a great machine.

Apple will be saying there are thousands of new games for the Mac in a while, but they are all going to be rotten mobile games.

I don't see any commitment from Apple to make any of their devices into the same league as machine from Microsoft, Sony and the PC world.

It's such a shame, and hope it will change, but I fear it's too late and Steve Jobs will see no money in going into that market.
 
res1233 said:
Well, you see, playing Halo 2 on a PC can be problematic. Trojans from downloading too much... Well, you know.
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My Porn sites are 100 percent safe, but whats wrong with H2PC? Runs epic on my 5970 even on my 8800GT it was good :confused:
 
*LTD* said:
Looks like whatever Steve did, it was the right thing to do.

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Yes, Bungie achieved its full potential by being purchased by microsoft who ( needed to ) cares about gaming due to its XBox console.

Had Apple bought Bungie I expect Apple would have closed them a few years afterwards. SJ never really cared about games on Macs - and it shows - lackluster graphic cards.
 
Face it...

If Apple acquired Bungie, Halo would have never been released because Steve wouldn't have thought it was good enough. Be happy that you have had a chance to play those Halo games.

GL
 
The truth is Bungie never would have had the success without Microsoft. The Apple as a gaming platform at the time offered them nothing compared to the what Microsoft had planned for them (Xbox in development).

Some you lose but most you seem to win Steve (iPod, iPhone, iPad...) I am sure he is over it.
 
i think the way it played out is the way it should have. Bungie would not been as big with Apple. Back in 2000, we had the CRT iMacs and the G4 Cube. Not really enough horsepower for gaming.

If MS didn;t acquire Bungie, the Xbox may have tanked, maybe no 360 and we wouldn't have a great game series like Halo. Heck I even went out and bought a 360 solely to play Halo Reach
 
Halo and the Xbox are two of the few things that Microsoft had done right. Although it's hard to call them "Microsoft" products, as the Xbox team has their own campus full of awesomeness, completely disconnected from Microsoft.
 
Apple wouldn't have done what MSFT did with bungie. That said, if it would have taken apple buying bungie over msft buying bungie to keep bungie making good mac games, I'd have been for it.


I'm quite sure that in the current environment they'd probably try to release pc versions of some games too, as they did with marathon II and myth.

Of course, apple might not allow it. I still can't play halo 2 or 3 on my mac, so, meh.
 
if SJ really cared about Mac gaming there was a long list of development houses to buy in the 1990's or create your own in house with devs from bankrupt companies like Microprose or Sierra on Line
 
Apple wasn't in a position to buy Bungie in 2000. They were too busy trying to sort out their next generation operating system (remember the Rhapsody mess?) and the future of the company.

Interesting historical anecdote regardless.
 
My couple cents on this ...

Let's not forget about the state of gaming hardware in 2000.

All the new toys were coming out for the PC which had the DirectX drivers and such. The Mac had some games, but no game-directed APIs as existed on Windows and then XBox.

I think more is owed to X.Org and Khronos Group for ending the stagnation that existed in X11 and OpenGL for several years and bringing the new features to their APIs, which have make it a not-so-difficult task for companies like Valve and Aspyr to do what they do.

But that's just my opinion on the matter.
 
I wonder if the xbox would have been as successful as it was if microsoft didn't have halo. then again they might have done what they did with halo to something else. I guess we'll never know.

I dont' think it would have been a good idea for apple to buy bungie.
 
BlindGoldfish said:
Halo and the Xbox are two of the few things that Microsoft had done right. Although it's hard to call them "Microsoft" products, as the Xbox team has their own campus full of awesomeness, completely disconnected from Microsoft.
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I wouldn't really call Halo a MS product, but to suggest that Xbox isn't a MS product and that Xbox team is "completely disconnected from Microsoft" is laughable.
 
I also agree with everyone who thinks Halo wouldn't have been nearly as successful on just a PC platform.

It's not a question of being able to handle the graphics on a Mac at the time. That would have been fine but you need a console to really get a game out there. At least with the xbox you know the gaming experience will be exactly the same for everyone who plays it because the equipment is the same. If it was a mac or pc platform game only you would have had a lot of people who wouldn't have bought it for various reasons (runs to slow, graphics are choppy on my computer, it's not fast enough to handle it, ect).
 
kk1ro said:
Bungie and Halo wouldn't be the same without Microsoft and Xbox, and the Xbox certainly would not be the same without Halo.
So, as an Xbox gamer, I think this was for the best.

Apple would probably keep Bungie from truly shining, seeing as gaming never was one of their main concerns.
Now that Bungie is going multiplatform, I hope they can bring their new title to the Mac!
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Indeed. I loves me some Apple, but in this instance gamers won.
 
In retrospect, Halo's success seems like an accidental byproduct of Microsoft's intent to deprive the Mac platform of a triple-A developer. The MacWorld Halo demo was impressive but out of all the PC developers why would Bungie be the sure thing?
 
Bungie's succes was due to Microsoft. I don't think Apple could have topped, or even come close, to doing the same thing that partnership did.
 
Sol said:
In retrospect, Halo's success seems like an accidental byproduct of Microsoft's intent to deprive the Mac platform of a triple-A developer. The MacWorld Halo demo was impressive but out of all the PC developers why would Bungie be the sure thing?
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Hardly....MS didn't acquire Bungie to take away the mac segment. They bought them as a fantastic game development team to create games for their new games console. Apple/Mac never would have come into the equation.

The whole purpose of the acquisition was to build a best seller, period.

Remember the mac was PowerPC, as was the Xbox - hence using a developer who has worked on the architecture would be a great benefit.
 
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