Two of the biggest names in the video gaming industry have announced a monumental 10-year development business deal that will be exclusive to each other on the third week of April right before the Summer quarter hits for video games and just before the beta version release of Halo Reach.

Now I say this is monumental because this leaves the exclusivity of the Halo Series as well as the exclusivity of developing their games for Microsoft at a crossroads. What does this mean for fans of the Halo Series and Microsoft as well?

This exclusive publishing deal is best analyzed that first off, Bungie is still and independent developer and not going to become a subsidiary of Activision like Infinity Ward, Neversoft, or FreeStyleGames are. Next is this 10-year deal is centered around the next series Bungie wants to work on thus making the Halo Series still open to be made on Microsoft’s console. However there has been official word from Bungie manager Brian Jerrard when they told VG247 that they (Bungie) would concentrate all their efforts on the new series thus probably marking Halo Reach as the last game in the Halo Series for now or the time being.

However, Bungie is still dedicated to the fans when it comes to the Halo Series and thus will have a small team still working on the Halo Series as in twerking the online multiplayer function which I believe was probably the defining part of the series as well as maintain it. Like I wrote earlier, Bungie is still an independent developing company and unless Activision follows the footsteps they did with all the other big-name products they have made per say the Call of Duty Series, the Tony Hawk Series, and of course the Hero Series, then they may even pull a big-business move out from nowhere and purchase the company making Bungie another subsidiary of Activision. It has happened before to other companies, it could happen again.

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On personal note, this is an endeavor that I see for Bungie but more for them than Activision. Both companies, though good, are actually seeing some struggle. Bungie’s Halo Series is doing extremely well but not as well as before. Halo 2 was probably the best game in the entire series and then after that it was kinda downhill even though I must say the series is great. Also, though the series is unbelievable and even broke records such as Halo 2 breaking sales for an opening day beating out all other forms of media, it is not the most popular in sales.

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Finally, I want to make notice this partnership opens a lot of opportunies for Bungie with other companies too. For example when it comes to Activision, people don’t really know this much here in the United States but one company – though very big yet not as big as you thought they were – actually has a partnership with Activision and the same goes with this company with EA and both Activision and EA are direct competitors of each other. I am talking of the video gaming company Capcom. Capcom is HUGE and they have deals and partnerships that are seen but never spoken about. For example, almost all the games by EA and Activision are published everywhere including Japan and the Asian Market but they are published through Capcom. The entire God of War Series was published by Capcom in Japan if you didn’t know that. So that’s just an example of what Bungie could utilize through this partnership indirectly.

Only time can tell what this new partnership would bring. I remember when there was an exclusive 10-year partnership between the licensing of Marvel and EA and that fell through really badly to the point that EA ended the 10-year contract early to prevent anymore losses. So who knows what will happen. Personally, I hope this partnership works out because I think Bungie could expand but also I hope Activision doesn’t go all corporate on Bungie and try to purchase the company though I understand if they do since first of all, Activision is a business and second they are a business like EA thus being direct competitors. Activision is known for bringing games to the video gaming nation, not creating.

More news will posted up as it becomes available like per se the new game series by Bungie that will be published by Activision.

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