Following the news developer id Software has been significantly impacted by Asha Sharma's sweeping Xbox job cuts, John Carmack has shared his thoughts.
I reckon that’s less about Microsoft and more about Bungie though. Bungie are primarily responsible for their own downfall with some terrible management decisions.
Microsoft were very good to Bungie from the beginning in terms of finance and support, and Halo on Mac would never have had the same impact as Halo on Xbox.
It’s been nearly 20 years since Bungie left Microsoft. In this case, I think it’s unfair to blame Microsoft for what they’ve since become.
Bungie wasn’t a Mac exclusive company. They were a Mac first company. Oni, the game they made right before Halo, was released to Windows and PS2 after it was released for Mac. Halo could have had just a big of an impact without being owned by Microsoft.
If Bungie stayed independent, Halo might have been a one and done game and they would have moved on to other IPs though.
They became wildly successful under Microsoft. As far as I remember, it was Bungie who were the driver behind leaving Microsoft because they wanted to move on to other IP, as opposed to being “The Halo company”.
I can’t blame them for that, but it’s not Microsoft’s fault that what they did afterwards was a shadow of their former glory.
I mean, I literally said it was Bungie making terrible management decisions.
But there’s no way Halo would have had the same impact on Mac as it did on Xbox. The Microsoft purchase was win-win. Leaving Microsoft let them pursue other IP and give greater creative control, but they also never reached those heights they did under Microsoft either before or after their stewardship.
Edit: don’t get me wrong, clearly recent Microsoft game studio acquisitions have been a bad thing for the industry, but I just don’t think the Bungie example is a good one. I think it’s rewriting history a bit to say that Bungie may have suffered under Microsoft.
This is a company that became industry rockstars with an incredibly successful franchise and were given an inordinate amount of money and support at the time. Them believing they’d be better off on their own was partly a fallacy, and only really resulted in going full circle and letting Sony purchase them.
I reckon that’s less about Microsoft and more about Bungie though. Bungie are primarily responsible for their own downfall with some terrible management decisions.
Microsoft were very good to Bungie from the beginning in terms of finance and support, and Halo on Mac would never have had the same impact as Halo on Xbox.
It’s been nearly 20 years since Bungie left Microsoft. In this case, I think it’s unfair to blame Microsoft for what they’ve since become.
Bungie wasn’t a Mac exclusive company. They were a Mac first company. Oni, the game they made right before Halo, was released to Windows and PS2 after it was released for Mac. Halo could have had just a big of an impact without being owned by Microsoft.
If Bungie stayed independent, Halo might have been a one and done game and they would have moved on to other IPs though.
I was blaming Microsoft for what they became 20 years ago.
They became wildly successful under Microsoft. As far as I remember, it was Bungie who were the driver behind leaving Microsoft because they wanted to move on to other IP, as opposed to being “The Halo company”.
I can’t blame them for that, but it’s not Microsoft’s fault that what they did afterwards was a shadow of their former glory.
Then they shouldn’t have allowed themselves to be bought out.
I mean, I literally said it was Bungie making terrible management decisions.
But there’s no way Halo would have had the same impact on Mac as it did on Xbox. The Microsoft purchase was win-win. Leaving Microsoft let them pursue other IP and give greater creative control, but they also never reached those heights they did under Microsoft either before or after their stewardship.
Edit: don’t get me wrong, clearly recent Microsoft game studio acquisitions have been a bad thing for the industry, but I just don’t think the Bungie example is a good one. I think it’s rewriting history a bit to say that Bungie may have suffered under Microsoft.
This is a company that became industry rockstars with an incredibly successful franchise and were given an inordinate amount of money and support at the time. Them believing they’d be better off on their own was partly a fallacy, and only really resulted in going full circle and letting Sony purchase them.