In a recent episode of GamesBeat Decides, it was said there had been reports that Microsoft had been attempting to acquire Bungie, developer of Destiny and ex-Xbox Games Studio, but talks had fallen through due to the asking price being too high. Eurogamer corroborated this report, with News Editor Tom Phillips saying he’d “independently heard these talks have taken place, driven on Bungie’s side by a desire to raise new funds for the studio, its projects and staff.”
Well, as it turns out, this all is a bunch of baloney. At least, according to Bungie CEO Pete Parsons.
In response to a Twitter post on the topic by by industry insider Nibel, Parsons simply said “this is false.”
This is false.
— pete parsons (@pparsons) September 14, 2020
Community manager David “DeeJ” Dague got spicy about it, asking that Nibel use the studio’s updated logo when “circulating gossip” about the company’s inner-workings.
https://twitter.com/DeeJ_BNG/status/1305528891583287298?s=20
A few other Bungie employees echoed the sentiment, such as Director of Global Public Relations Vanessa Vanasin saying on her own Twitter that “the info and speculation out there is not true. We are lucky to have a great relationship with our many friends over there who play Destiny, and Halo will always have a special place in our hearts.”
Phillips responded to Parsons original tweet, asking for clarification on what specifically in the reports was false, but Parsons hasn’t responded as of this writing. Phillips points out that if Parsons is referring to whether or not Bungie and Microsoft have ever been in talks for a reacquisition, that it should be clarified, as that implies that there has not been any such discussion in the past 13 years, rather than just recently. According to the Eurogamer article, a Bungie spokesperson sent Phillips the tweet in place of an actual comment on the matter.
Hey Pete, which parts of this tweet are you saying are false? If you are saying Bungie and Microsoft have never discussed an acquisition, it would be good to clarify this.
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsEG) September 14, 2020
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Whatever the case may be, Microsoft having at some point attempted to add Bungie to its list of Xbox Game Studios wouldn’t have seemed out of the question over the past few years, as the company has been buying studios to join its first-party developers throughout the past few years. This includes some fairly big names like Ninja Theory, Double Fine, and Obsidian. It would, however, be surprising for Bungie to have left one company and walked right into the arms of another, having just ended its publishing deal with Activision last year. The studio is now independent and free to do what it will with all its Destiny money, and is planning to release a new game by 2025 that won’t be part of the Destiny franchise.
Bungie is set to launch the next update to Destiny 2 on November 10 with “Beyond Light.” For more on that, check out our guide on everything you need to have done before the expansion comes out in two months.
