A new round of rumors suggesting that Microsoft might be considering Bungie’s acquisition has surfaced, but the studio’s CEO was fast enough to deny the claims. That being said, Bungie and Microsoft are no strangers to each other, as the companies share a long history of partnership in developing the Halo franchise.
After creating three consecutive Halo entries as Microsoft’s subsidiary, Bungie became an independent studio in 2007. In 2010, the partnership between the companies came to an end as Bungie announced a 10-years-long agreement with Activision, although it lasted for 8 years only, during which Destiny and its sequel were released. In 2019 the studio regained its independence once again, successfully keeping rights for the Destiny trademark. And now, it is rumored that Microsoft was in talks of acquiring Bungie 13 years after its initial departure. Studio’s CEO Pete Parsons called the reports false, but allegedly, new evidence has surfaced.
As spotted on Open Corporates (via XboxEra), the proof was found hinting at a possible Bungie acquisition. It was based on the assumption that a CSC officer attributed to Bungie was somehow related to the studio being purchased. The truth, however, is that the original investigator at XboxEra simply got confused in terms. A CSC officer is not an executive that is being put in charge of a company during the process of an acquisition. Instead, such a person simply acts as a hired company’s representative working on its behalf to handle various legal issues and has nothing to do with anything else. Bungie’s CEO Pete Parsons never went into such details trying to explain the arrogance of the claim as he simply responded with “Nope” over on Twitter.
Interestingly, even the original rumor, debunked by Parsons, didn’t sound convincing enough. It was suggested that Microsoft made a few offers to buy Bungie, but the price was too high. None of that sounds credible as there’s hardly a price high enough that Microsoft won’t be willing to pay for an enticing acquisition, considering that the company has recently purchased the entirety of ZeniMax Media for a whopping $7.5 billion.
While it’s unlikely that Bungie’s price would ever be estimated on a similar level, the studio is nonetheless doing great with its profitable Destiny 2 MMO shooter. The game is expected to receive a new portion of fresh content soon. Titled Beyond Light, the next big update arrives at the beginning of November with a plethora of impressive additions. Players can expect new picturesque environments scattered across the planets and moons of the Solar system. At the same time, the expansion will remove some of the older content to reflect the evolving state of the game.
Perhaps, the recent flow of rumors circulating the Internet was driven by collaboration between Bungie and Microsoft to bring Destiny 2 to Xbox Game Pass. Judging by the studio’s history with the hard-earned independence, it doesn’t have any intentions to lose it. Destiny 2 is seemingly doing great, and while Microsoft is indeed buying development resources left and right, Bungie is probably not on its shortlist. Still, the studio has plans to develop an original new franchise by 2025, which Microsoft could be interested in.
Sources: OpenCorporates (via XboxEra), Twitter - Pete Parsons