Bungie focusing on Xbox 360

By Tom Bramwell Published 7 December, 2007

"No plans" for other formats.

Bungie Studios currently has "no plans" to work on any platforms besides Xbox 360, two of the developer's top men told Eurogamer readers in a LiveText interview this afternoon.

"We have no plans to work on any other platforms beyond 360 at this time," writing lead Frank O'Connor responded to a question about whether Bungie's newfound independence might give rise to non-360 projects.

"Microsoft have been good friends to us," added Jonty Barnes, production director. "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."

The two developers covered a wide range of topics during their nearly 90 minutes fielding Eurogamer readers' questions, providing insight into a number of areas and revealing, among other things, the following:

  • Stand Off from the new Halo 3 map pack has "at least two Easter Eggs", "each one more horrifying than the last".
  • There's nothing new to report on the Halo film at the moment, with its "pause button firmly pressed".
  • They are not working on anything Marathon-related right now, but "it's not outwith the bounds of reason that we could revisit it one day".
  • When asked about possibly reselling technology, Barnes said the company was "not interested in focusing on how we can generate the most revenue".
  • When a reader countered with a question about the map pack price, Frank explained that Microsoft sets the price once Bungie has billed them for how much it cost to develop.
  • Asked about the possibility of multiplayer bots as DLC, Barnes said: "I cannot comment on the plans for Halo 3 at this time outside of the snippets of DLC announcements we've already made."
  • Bungie's involvement in Ensemble Studios' Halo Wars game has been largely in advising on story and universe.
  • Bungie has no current plans to produce a game for Xbox Live Arcade.
  • Frank "sucks at all music games".
  • Both men would rather be invisible than have lasers for eyes.

Look out for another LiveText interview soon, and check out the full transcript for more.

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 (23) Latest comment 5 years ago

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

  • SeanLB #1 5 years ago

    They never did reveal anything about their next project outside of Halo. Shame.

  • Danoxth #2 5 years ago

    "Both men would rather be invisible than have lasers for eyes."

    The bar is now set, everyone that appears in a live chat has to be asked this question, that is all.

  • rhinoxious #3 5 years ago

    "When a reader countered with a question about the map pack price, Frank explained that Microsoft sets the price once Bungie has billed them for how much it cost to develop."

    Though that's not to say that the two figures are entirely unconnected of course!

  • haowan #4 5 years ago

    no shit

  • L42yB #5 5 years ago

    @SeanLB - Yeh... I asked that one as I'm sure many, many people did. I expect they are not allowed to talk about it yet...

    I did get quite a few of my questions answered tho :) It is very sad about the Halo film, I thought that may have some hope of being good considering Peter Jackson was onboard.

    @Danoxth - Who would choose to have lasers for eyes over invisibility anywayz? You can have the laser eyes, I'll have the invisiblilty. Let's see who wins ;)

  • rhinoxious #6 5 years ago

    I wonder how much work was actually involved in making designing, creating and testing those maps?

    Though it's hard to fault MS or bungie entirely as they will be free in the not too distant future.

  • L42yB #7 5 years ago

    @rhinoxious - "I wonder how much work was actually involved in making designing, creating and testing those maps?"

    I'm sure it cost M$ quite a bit to make them, but that's hardly the point. After going on about how many copies of Halo 3 they have sold, you'd think they'd have made enough money out of us already...

  • Pedrolot #8 5 years ago

    They like MS's Dick..

  • Nallen #9 5 years ago

    This is a bit of a shit news story considering the whole thing is an inch to the left with a ruddy great picture.

  • Rirekon #10 5 years ago

    Pedrolot, you're an idiot. I'm entirely unsurprised that Bungie will stick with the 360 for a while at least, it's a system they know, have written an engine for, and has an established fan-base for their games. In essence; if it ain't broke, don't jump ship.

  • ZeroAX #11 5 years ago

    no but why use only 1 ship and restrict your game sales to 10mil ports when you can have 20mil ports adding all next gen systems (and if we add pc add another billion users)

    yeah this doesn't make sense.basically they lsoe ms money support

  • Pedrolot #12 5 years ago

    Thats not very nice now Rirekon is it?

  • GamesConnoisseur #13 5 years ago

    So Insomniac Games like Sony's dick!

    They do successful franchises for Sony's platform and thus play safe by sticking to the platform.

    No different for Bungie or other platform-centric devs. Would you rather everyone be EA?!

    I dont have any issue with either as both develop games brilliantly on the platform they are focusing on.

  • Pedrolot #14 5 years ago

    GamesConnoisseur:

    You do put a very good point across actually lol...

  • BBIAJ #15 5 years ago

    Heh, I remember someone on here the other day praising how glad he was that Bungie were now developing for the PStriple, despite them never even saying anything of the sort.

    Oh, how I larped at the poor, deluded, little prink...

  • Phily50 #16 5 years ago

    larped? prink?


    *sigh*

  • BBIAJ #17 5 years ago

    Never watched Absolutely?

  • Lexx87 #18 5 years ago

    I still commend you EG to take down the "comment thread makes people angry" field. It's not long till this one sets off a world of hatred filled comments.

    I do enjoy reading them though :)

  • Petrarch #19 5 years ago

    And before Oni, they developed the Myth series and of course, the Marathon Trilogy.

    Marathon in perticular is held in extremely high regard.

  • Gl3n #20 5 years ago

    oi, bramwell! great job on these livetext thingies recently. Been very entertaining and informative.

  • deaner #21 5 years ago

    Developer still majority owned by Microsoft who've only got one IP in not developing for other platforms shocker!

    Well I can't say I feel cheated!

    Still - if they had to make a game without the luxury of DirectX it was bound to be crap anyway!

  • drumbaby #22 5 years ago

    Halo 4 confirmed then?

  • Yaz #23 5 years ago

    "Oh dear, I'm very upset I won't get a bunch of shitty flood levels on the PC. Apart from the last two pieces of shit."

    So let me guess, you don't like Halo and feel you have to keep telling the whole world about it. :)