Bungie Focuses on Xbox 360

Halo developer Bungie has reaffirmed its commitment to Microsoft’s console.

Two months after gaining independence from Microsoft, Halo house Bungie has moved on to the creative stages of its next, undisclosed title. Production director Jonty Barnes and writing lead Frank O’Connor talked with Eurogamer on the future of the studio’s projects, what platforms they may develop for and what the next Bungie release could possibly be.

Gilrod: Obvious question first, you guys going to be working on any other platforms other than 360?

Frank O’Connor: We have no plans to work on any other platforms beyond 360 at this time.

Jonty Barnes: Microsoft have been good friends to us. You can see the strength of our relationship in Halo. We’re really focused on continuing our collaboration in making the best games we can, and that right now is on 360. It’s our hope this relationship continues to be our strongest one, as we have a lot of respect for the people we have worked with at Microsoft.

SeanLB: In the past Bungie staff have publicly stated that as a whole Bungie always focused on the game at hand and not defining the Xbox platform. Did this cause some aggravation with Microsoft, whom particularly with the original Halo were looking to define a new entrant to the market?

Jonty Barnes: I’m sure Microsoft would have loved Halo 3 as a launch title, but they understood how important Halo was to Bungie, so Microsoft were fully behind us making it the game it needed to be.

O’Connor had little to say about the status of the Halo movie that grinded to a halt late last year.

L42yB: Have you guys got any info on the Halo movie and what’s happening with it (if anything)?

Frank O’Connor: The Halo movie, as everyone knows, came to a somewhat ungainly halt as various men in suits tried to get all their ducks in a row, Hollywood style. The end result was that the movie was put on hold. We’d love to see a movie made, but only if it was being put together with the same kind of passion that we’d pour into a game. Nothing new to report, I’m afraid, it still has it’s pause button firmly pressed.

One Eurogamer drew the focus of the conversation back toward Bungie’s aging classic Marathon.

Bumbuliuz: Will we ever see a Marathon game for the Xbox 360?

Frank O’Connor: Marathon is a great love of ours – it introduced a lot of concepts and ideas that we’d flesh out later in the Halo series. Bungie owns the Marathon IP outright, so it’s not outwith the bounds of reason that we could revisit it one day. I can however tell you we’re not working on anything Marathon-related right now.