Ex developer: Apple nearly bought Bungie

By Tom Bramwell Published 27 October, 2010

"Steve said yes."

A former Bungie developer has claimed that Apple was on the verge of buying the Halo developer just before Microsoft did back in the late nineties.

Yesterday, former Microsoft executive Ed Fries revealed that he was asked by CEO Steve Ballmer to placate Steve Jobs after the acquisition because the famously volatile Apple boss was furious about it.

Now, former Bungie staffer Tuncer Deniz, who worked there prior to the Microsoft buyout, has claimed that Jobs had also been invited to buy the studio, only to lose out because he dithered for a week before he made his mind up.

Deniz told Develop that Bungie's bosses "asked Apple if they were interested in buying us".

Apple's Phil Schiller put the question to Jobs, "who said no", but "after a week, Steve said yes". When Schiller phoned up Bungie, however, he was informed that "Bungie had already consummated the deal with Microsoft".

And the rest, as they say, is history! And purple gnomes.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Redeye #1 2 years ago

    You snooze, you lose.

    Also, Jobslol. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

  • Milkman1 #2 2 years ago

    Okay... Who cares what almost happened 10 years ago?

  • doragor #3 2 years ago

    @Milkman1

    I find it interesting. The amount of whining about news and content on this website is mind boggling.

  • spekkeh #4 2 years ago

    Bungie had already consummated the deal with Microsoft

    Well, their love child did alright.

  • Malek86 #5 2 years ago

    Well, it must've been sad for those guys to leave their Jobs, but at least they got a new Job at Microsoft.

  • metalangel #6 2 years ago

    I wonder if Halo would still be the juggernaut it is today?

  • Olemak #7 2 years ago

    Apple would'nt have known what to do with Bungie anyway.
    Apple's never been very keen on gaming, and they dont have anything even resembling an Xbox.

    Halo on Apple TV would have been pretty lame.

  • coolbritannia #8 2 years ago

    Now, feel the might of this fully armed and operational battle - ah shit wrong thread.

  • lambtron #9 2 years ago

    And thank god MS did buy them and not Apple TBH.

  • hiddenranbir #10 2 years ago

    If Bungie stayed with Apple the first Halo would have been a dinky 2D game for the ipod or something.

  • DreadedWalrus #11 2 years ago

    I like how, in a sentence that mentions both Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs, it's the latter that gets described as "famously volatile". :)

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #12 2 years ago

    Except that Halo was about 1 month away being released on PS2 when Microsoft bought them out.

    It was much further away from that from being the game that we recognise. There's a very interesting internal video from MS usability labs about how they tuned FPS controls to work on a console. If it wasn't for that, PS2 Halo would be about as playable as PS2 Half Life.

    Although, weirdly, it seems in Eurogamer's terms that was judged As Good As Halo.

  • AaronTurner #13 2 years ago

    Can't say I recall it being scheduled to come out for PS2, it was never a console game before Microsoft got involved was it?
    Edited by AaronTurner at 27/10/10 @ 10:06

  • photoboy #14 2 years ago

    Seems to me the only person Jobs should have been angry with was himself. Bungie gave him first refusal and he refused, it's not Bungie's fault or Microsoft's that Jobs was too slow on the ball. That said, I doubt Halo would be the phenomenon that it is today if it had been a Mac only release.

  • subedii #15 2 years ago

    "...If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it..."

  • jonbwfc #16 2 years ago

    I think Spekkeh's description of Halo as MS & Bungie's love child is a little way off the mark. Given how far into development Halo was when MS got involved, I'd say it's more a case that MS is Halo's benign step-parent :).

    Photoboy is right though, Apple had the chance to buy Bungie and decided against it. Tough Luck. However if they had, I doubt Halo would have been the game it is today. It would have only ever have been a PC (well, PC/Mac) game under Apple's control and while I'm sure it would still have been great it wouldn't have got the attention being the headline game on a new console gets you. Which probably means we wouldn't be on our (what?) 6th halo game by now.

  • spekkeh #17 2 years ago

    I think Spekkeh's description of Halo as MS & Bungie's love child is a little way off the mark. Given how far into development Halo was when MS got involved, I'd say it's more a case that MS is Halo's benign step-parent :).

    It was a pun on 'consummating', which also means 'having sex' ;).

    edit: sorry if you meant that too with 'step-parent'
    Edited by spekkeh at 27/10/10 @ 11:20

  • flaming.carrot #18 2 years ago

    Actually Halo was initially planned for PC, Mac, PS2 and Dreamcast. Part of the Microsoft deal involved passing over PS2 development of Oni (Bungie's other in-progress project), to company called Rockstar games. I quite liked Oni at the time (apart from the final boss battle which was rubbish).

  • Kaminari #19 2 years ago

    What what what?

  • Les #20 2 years ago

    "Photoboy is right though, Apple had the chance to buy Bungie and decided against it. Tough Luck. However if they had, I doubt Halo would have been the game it is today."

    Yeah, I agree. What made Halo big was:
    1) It was the first FPS that worked well on a console
    2) It was one of the few early titles that justified buying an xbox
    3) Early and significant xbox price reductions (MS was pretty soon practically giving xbox-es away in order to sort of compete with PS2 and overtake GC)

    On the Mac the conditions were very different and thus the outcome would likely have been different as well.

    I guess in hindsight this turned out quite OK for Apple. Halo sort of made sure that MS kept hopes of someday making some money through xbox and in the process throw lots and lots of resources at the effort. Resources that couldn't be used to compete directly with Apple's money makers iPod and iPhone.
    Edited by Les at 27/10/10 @ 17:31