Bungie's status as an exclusive developer..

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Thursday, February 21, 2013, 03:04 (4297 days ago) @ FyreWulff

Fun fact:

PS2 and Xbox came out at the same time.

Bungie released a game for the PS2, which was Oni.

Bungie was an exclusive developer to Microsoft for an entire decade.

.. they still will have released games for three consecutive Sony consoles (PS2, PS3, PS4).

Technically they've never been Microsoft exclusive :P

Well... that's a stretch. Technically the PS2 version of Oni was a port by Rockstar.

If you consider the release history, Bungie basically went from being a Mac-only developer to an Xbox-only developer, with a few intervening anomalies:

Marathon 2 on Windows 95;

Myth 1 & 2 on Windows;

Oni on PC and PlayStation.

Halo 1 port to PC and Mac;

Halo 2 port to Windows Vista.

That's a grand total of six games.

Bungie's total output was:

Gnop, Operation Desert Storm, Minotaur, Pathways Into Darkness, Marathon 1, Marathon 2, Myth 1, Myth 2, Oni, Halo 1, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo:Reach

So that's 14 games. Of those, five were Macintosh only (Gnop through Marathon 1), one was Mac-first (Marathon 2) three are still Xbox exclusives (Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach) and the othes were Xbox-first (Halo 1, 2).

The true cross-platform releases (as in day and date, simultaneous) were Myth 1, Myth 2, and Oni. (Although I think the PS2 version was late compared to the Mac/PC versions). In other words, the last 3 games they released before MS bought them.

I think Bungie has always really wanted to be a true cross-platform developer, making games for as many platforms as they can. I think early on, the opportunities were in the Macintosh market, and the principals were familiar with it. Later, circumstances conspired to lead them into the MS exclusive camp, from which they have only recently emerged, because although they became independent in 2007 they had to make two more Halo games to fulfil contractual obligations.

In a way, we're only seeing now what Bungie has always wanted to be, and a lot of what I see described as being part of Destiny sounds like things that were planned for Halo and dropped, or never made it off the drawing board.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out.