It doesn’t really seem Sony acquired Bungie anyway. Like, they bought a certain percentage of stock because Bungie still develops for Xbox anyway and I think they’ll continue to do so. It’s weird Microsoft talks about Bungie because um….. Bungie LEFT Microsoft because they wanted to do other things and Microsoft trapped them into doing Halo so, funny they’d say that when Bungie wanted out of that anyway. So, Bungie is a prime reason why you don’t want to go to Microsoft AND so is Shinji Mikami. Tango was acquired by Zenamax and once Microsoft acquired Zenamax, Shinji made his game and bailed. He knew how Microsoft did business and he didn’t want to be there, so he left.
This is what it’s like to work with Xbox:
– ROD FERGUSON – Went with Gears of War to Xbox to form THE COALITION. He was the Studio Head (the big boss) and after two Gears games left for Blizzard Entertainment. He gave up Microsoft money and Studio Head position to go to Blizzard.
– SHINJI MIKAMI – Studio Founder of Tango Gameworks and the Father of Resident Evil and after being acquired by Xbox, he finished Hi-Fi Rush that underperformed being announced last minute and released at announcement and Shinji Mikami was gone.
– THE INITIATIVE – How many Studio Heads and Creative Directors have they had and Perfect Dark is still in limbo and how many years out?
– 343 INDUSTRIES – They’ve had it. They’re sick and tired of Microsoft pressing them to meet deadlines and not having their support and cooperation and they’d finally had enough. Xbox has blamed them entirely and have bad mouthed them in front of Xbox fans to save face with consumers. Uh…. You dont do that. Microsoft’s…. What’s his name? Matt Bootey? The current head of Xbox Studios? He just BASHED his team of developers and blamed them entirely rather than accepting responsibility for how Xbox treated them so, I bet a lot of 343 developers swam to Sony shores. I’ve no doubt that word gets around in the game developer world that PlayStation takes really good care of their devs and really know the industry and games. Naughty Dog is the coveted studio to work for, at least for a couple of games and is the studio Microsoft wants to have and are trying to replicate dropping The Initiative right in the middle of Sony’s devs in hopes they can infiltrate the PlayStation border and buddy up to them to get some comradely and some gaming tips, that’s Microsoft’s intent because Xbox is a Washington based company. Sony’s ONLY studio up that direction is Sucker Punch, everything else is in the Los Angeles (Hollywood) area.
