There's been a lot of talk about the new internal 343 Industries group at Microsoft Game Studios. 343 is going to be overseeing any projects related to the Halo universe, and we have a feeling they're going to be quite busy - there's no way that Microsoft is going to stop pumping out content for its hottest IP.
As far as Bungie is concerned, however, they're through with Halo. Following Halo: ODST and Halo Reach, the developer is moving on to other projects, which of course is the reason they sought to regain their independence from Microsoft. Bungie senior designer Lars Bakken told CVG that Halo Reach is the last Xbox 360 Halo title from them: "In terms of a platform for Halo games made by Bungie, yes. I can't answer that question for Microsoft though. Whether they have something in the works or not, I don't know if they're actually ready to talk about it yet, but in terms of Bungie-produced Halo games, ODST and then Reach is probably all you're going to get." Bakken also added that work on ODST is now complete.
In unrelated Halo news, you may remember how over the past couple years Microsoft made a big fuss over the involvement of filmmaker Peter Jackson with the Halo property. At one point, the Lord of the Rings director was tied to a Hollywood movie for Halo, but that all fell apart. And according to comments made by Jackson to Joystiq, it would seem that he's not working on anything Halo related for Microsoft anymore.
"Microsoft has a whole strategy with the Halo property, and when the rights expired with the two studios, that sort of ended my involvement with the project. That fell apart because of internal politics at Fox and Universal. It had nothing to do with the budget or anything else. In fact, we hadn't even been greenlit at all at that point," Jackson said about the now dead movie.
When asked about the other Halo project that his company Wingnut Interactive was supposed to collaborate with Microsoft on, he said that's no longer happening either. "That Halo project is no longer happening, it sort of collapsed when the movie didn't end up happening," he noted.
IndustryGamers can't help but be a little saddened by all of this. Without Bungie working on the games, the Halo IP likely won't be the same anymore. The loss of a superstar like Peter Jackson has to hurt Microsoft as well.
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