Apple Almost Acquired 'Halo' Developer Bungie in 2000

[ziggyonice]

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If Apple would've acquired them, the Xbox wouldn't have had its only smash-hit title, and the product would've failed.

Seriously. The only popular game for the original Xbox was Halo. If it hadn't existed, the Xbox would be a failed project and the 360 might have never happened. It'd just be the PS3 and the Wii right now.

Too bad, I suppose.

 

[xPismo]

I agree completely. I think Bungie did far more with MS than they would have been able to achieve with Apple.

So? Bungie / Jason Jones was 100% mac. He posted a why Mac gaming makes financial sense article back in the Marathon days. He believed. Making HALO Mac only was part of the plan.

HALO was going to be the tentpole that made the mac mainstream. Remember the scope of the Macworld demo? Alien language, animals, different character classes, multiple worlds to explore. Its was huge and it was dumbed down for console use.

This is one of those pivotal moments, one that Doctor Who would say you cant change even if you want to. . . and I really really want to.

Jason had always said they were in discussions with Apple but Microsoft came to the table with a better deal. Now we know it was Jobs ego that made him miss having the biggest game of that decade on his platform.

That sucks Steve. It really does.

 

[Earendil]

Now we know it was Jobs ego that made him miss having the biggest game of that decade on his platform.

That sucks Steve. It really does.

And how exactly do we know it was his ego? Or did you pull that out of your arse?

 

[Brien]

I hate to say it, but in the long run it was better for MS to buy Bungie. If Apple had bought bungie, we'd likely have gotten an inferior Halo 1, and possibly no sequels. MS had a lot of money and resources they poured into Bungie.

 

[Marlor]

If Apple would've acquired them, the Xbox wouldn't have had its only smash-hit title, and the product would've failed.

Seriously. The only popular game for the original Xbox was Halo. If it hadn't existed, the Xbox would be a failed project and the 360 might have never happened. It'd just be the PS3 and the Wii right now.

Halo was a middling FPS. Well behind what was available on the PC at the time.

It succeeded because it became ubiquitous. It was the first console FPS with a large multiplayer community, and everyone wanted to play it for that reason.

If hadn't existed, the next decent FPS to come along and take advantage of XBox Live would have replaced it.

Halo wasn't a huge leap in gaming. It was just a decent game in the right place at the right time. Live was the real success story from the XBox, not Halo.

 

[TheFatCityChamp]

Halo was a middling FPS. Well behind what was available on the PC at the time.

It succeeded because it became ubiquitous. It was the first console FPS with a large multiplayer community, and everyone wanted to play it for that reason.

If hadn't existed, the next decent FPS to come along and take advantage of XBox Live would have replaced it.

Halo wasn't a huge leap in gaming. It was just a decent game in the right place at the right time. Live was the real success story from the XBox, not Halo.

Partly true and partly false.

Halo: CE was revolutionary for consoles. At that point, no one had figured out how to properly map FPS controls to a console controller. There were some previous ham-fisted attempts, but Bungie created an elegant solution to the challenge. This essentially proved to the industry that FPS could be viable on consoles, and Halo's overwhelming popularity paved the road for other developers produce console first person shooters, which is still the most popular genre today. Bungie and Halo are responsible for that, at least more than any other single factor.

That sort of heritage (basically the spawning of the most popular console genre ever) makes Halo a hall-of-fame status game, not "middling" as you stated. But you are correct that it wasn't necessarily head and shoulders above PC games at the time.

Secondly, Halo:CE came out before xbox live. When Live got rolling, Halo:CE wasn't supported. You couldn't play Halo:CE on Live. Its multiplayer was limited to LAN parties, yet it was still insanely popular.

Halo 2 was the first Halo game to be played on Live.

In short, Halo was a big deal on its own merit, because of Bungie's brilliance. It was the killer app that solidified the xbox as a platform. So while I agree with you that it wasn't anything special compared to PC games, I disagree that it wasn't a huge accomplishment in the gaming world. I mean, look at the state of PC gaming today compared to console gaming - it's laughable comparison. Halo and Bungie had a hand in that.

Regardless of what sort of fanboy anyone is - PC gaming, playstation, whatever - it's generally accepted that Bungie is one of the world's best game developers.