Yes they did, the one game MS had with sole left when bungie stopped making it. I still dont remember what the hell happened in Halo 4, all I remember is I had to push a button like those 2007 German MTV commercials. Pooosh dee button!

"Playstation players saying "thank you Microsoft" every time something cool happens"

This made my morning alot better reading this.

"Compelling Narrative"? What game have you been playing?

It's a lose for someones, a win for other ones ;)

I dont see it. I am playing Destiny Beta right now on PS4 and buddies playing on Xbox. Destiny is not Halo. Its a good filler till Halo Collection in November and Halo 5 will blow it out of the water next year.

games are art. in the art world famous pieces are copied for generations by artists who reproduce the famous marks while all the time making improvements to them. Even though the new copies are better from a technical point of view, they do not match the quality and vision that was the original which is what made it a masterpiece to begin with. this is why a copy of a famous painting will never match the original's price tag. Halo was Bungie's vision. it was bungie's baby. 343 can improve on halo all they want(which is great) but it will never be the "Halo" as envisioned by Bungie. In this sense, Destiny is more "Halo" than halo 5.

"For gamers, Bungie’s new era broadens its scope, and for the greater industry therein lies a formidable appeal to Xbox and PlayStation gamers alike: Destiny is, in some sort of twisted, tragic way, this Xbox fanboy’s way of saying to PlayStation fans, 'This is what you’ve been missing out on for the past decade!'"

Ehhh idk man, I've played Halo and I'm currently playing the Destiny beta and I'd confidently say Destiny easily tops Halo. Granted, that's just my opinion.

But yeah, Microsoft losing Bungie would be like Sony losing Naughty Dog. And it's even a bigger blow to Microsoft considering they have far less big first party studios. Sony could lose Naughty Dog and it would be borderline tragic, but they'd still have Santa Monica, Sucker Punch, Media Molecule, Evolution, Studio Japan, Guerilla, etc. to fall back on. Other than 343, Microsoft heavily leans on the studios that make Forza and Fable. This is personally why I prefer Playstation. Microsoft has been churning out Halo, Fable, and Forza since the original Xbox. That'd be like Sony still making Crash and Spyro games after all these years. And it's not that Halo and those other games are bad franchise; I just want new IPs and I think Sony delivers more of them. Bungie doesn't even make Halo anymore, and now Microsoft has pawned off Gears to another studio. Sometimes you just gotta let stuff die...

But hey, you gotta give Microsoft credit for going out and landing games like Quantum Break and Sunset Overdrive. Those games look fantastic. If you would have told me several years ago that Bungie's next game would be multiplatform with Playstation-exclusive content and that Insomniac's next game would be a full-blown Xbox exclusive, I would have looked at you like you had three heads.

What narrative are you talking about? We have seen very little of that in Beta for Destiny. We get an intro narrative and a few missions.

Bungie is the sole reason Xbox even exists. When they left the soul of Halo was gone. 343 will never be as good as them.

As for Destiny I find myself enjoying this more than any new Halo that would come out, especially since you could do more in this game than Halo in the first place. Bungie is going above and beyond and I give them props.

The problem with the Xbox One was one of internal mismanagement. People within Microsoft wanted to turn the Xbox One into something else, a multimedia machine. In the process, they lost what made it popular to begin with.

The last 10 years of MS have been like this actually, with them playing "catch up" in all market segments (smartphones, tablets, search, cloud, etc, etc).

MS has been very schizophrenic and this has in tern hurt ALL their platforms and products, from Windows 8 getting a Tablet interface, to them purchasing Nokia and trying to be like Apple, to their screwing up the Xbox One. Back in the mid 2000's, they we building several MMO's, but when certain presidents changed positions or quit, those MMO's were cancelled. They may of had the next WoW for example, but we will never know because they quit. On the flip side, why did they even get into MMO's in the first place? Look at their PC Gaming Strategy over the last decade with Windows Live and some other stupid things they have done. They could of easily have built Steam, but myopia cost them.

I believe that Microsoft now has a very focused CEO, but the damage has been done to certain brands, and it will be very hard to change things and some will be losers as a result.

Xbox One may very well end up being a loser this generation, though it is still too early to tell. It is a great system, but one that gamers see as second fiddle, and Joe-Average-Consumer doesn't care about as much as MS thought they would. Where does this leave it? It leaves it as the system that people buy because they loved the original Xbox and Xbox360 or with a reversed role with the PS3, the one you bought just to play a few exclusives, if you had money.

I dont either console yet, because I think they both still sort of suck content wise. I may get a console for Destiny when it comes out in September and if I do, it will obviously be the PS4, because that is the stronger system. Can I justify $400 later on just to play Halo? Do I care anymore? I am 38, gaming isn't as imporant as it used to be for me, and what games I do play are usually on the PC, with better graphics and options.

Bungie is important but not that important.

The most important thing is Microsoft's internal leadership, which over the last few years has been terrible, and that is why the Xbox One is the system it is today, because somebody thought that Kinect would be the future. He made a bet, it was the wrong bet, and they will lose the xbox division because of it.

And as per normal, in 5-10 years from now, another company will come retread ground that Microsoft already broke, and be a success with it.

Too much focus on the company name and not on the actual people who have made these games. Companies dont make games people make them, follow the developer trail and you see where it leads you.

Wow, when Bungie was with MS many were bashing them, they have been independent for years, now they are greatest devs, now that the games are multiplat. Meh, this happens with devs like the people who made Resistance. It happens.

As far as I know, Bungie is still making games for Xbox, so I don't see how they lost anything.

Also, Microsoft only have themselves to blame for losing Bungie. I'd venture to say that MS didn't give them much creative freedom and instead had them continue making Halo games because it's their cash cow. If they had let Bungie do what they want, Destiny could have been an Xbox exclusive.

There was an article on here recently stating that Sony actually loses money on most games because they let their studios do what they want...which seemingly isn't a good business stategy, but they've been doing it and delivering great new IPs since 1995 so why stop now.

Destiny, although a somewhat fun game, is also really embarrassing for Bungie.

From the second you are introduced to the Ghost companion, who looks like Guilty Spark and serves as your Cortana in this game, you feel like you're playing a shallow rip off of Halo. The two gunplay, the grenade throwing and even the enemy AI, it's all exactly the same.

But they didn't stop there. The gunplay is also a bit reminiscent of CoD, the weapon scavenging reminds me of Borderlands and the entire structure of the game is similar the PSO.

The level design is very generic. Even though this is an "open world" game you are still forced down a linear path.

Unfortunately the music isn't nearly as good as what's found in the Halo series.

But putting my personal criticisms aside please allow me to refute the obvious agenda being pushed by this author. They haven't lost anything as the company is still making games for Microsoft hardware. That should be obvious.

343 is an incompetent dev studio that created the call of duty of the Halo franchise, with QTE's, boring bullet sponge tier enemies, bad writing such as having MC speak a lot more than previous entries and a forced shallow dramatic ending, QTE's placed at the worst times, and CODified gameplay. I don't get how everyone just fanboys over halo this hard to think 343 is a good dev. Plus they never post on the forums or respond except for announcements and bans

Microsoft dont OWN Bungie and they never have. They OWN the Halo franchise and funded development and publishing rights. If they did own Bungie then Destiny would still be an exclusive?? Someone post a link to an article where Microsoft have sold Bungie please?

Same scenario as Titanfall. They have funded development of the game but dont own the publishing rights hence why they dont OWN Respawn Studios

Microsoft lost nothing. They still have halo...and yes Destiny feels like a halo game...if you played a halo game then you will know that...

I didnt think destiny was that special tbh....if you've played halo for the past few years it's nothing we haven't seen before.dont get me wrong it's a cool game but nothing groundbreaking IMO