Something to consider is that Bungie/Activision may have made the exclusive offer to Sony first (and possibly to Sony only). You're correct that Microsoft put Bungie on the map, but you're forgetting that Bungie was often not particularly happy with the relationship and broke it off as soon as they were feasibly able too. You also might remember that before Microsoft Bungie was an up and coming studio in it's own right with a few critically acclaimed games under it's belt. Halo likely would have been a hit even without Microsoft, although possibly not as big of a hit (and it's arguable that the XBOX would have been a complete failure without Halo). Bungie would have very likely continued to be a successful company even without Microsoft's support, although it's hard to say if a multiplatform or Sony exclusive Halo would have been as popular. Halo's reputation (accurate or not) as the only XBOX game worth playing* certainly helped focus a huge amount of attention on it. The game might not have gained as much attention in the much richer Playstation and PC libraries. Anyway, characterizing Microsoft's treatment of Bungie as nurturing and caring is pretty inaccurate, at least according to many reports.
It's also worth pointing out that Bungie reportedly had a good relationship with Sony prior to being bought by Microsoft.
* Despite popular opinion, teh XBOX did have a handful of really great games besides Halo. I'm very fond of Panzer Dragoon Orta and Jet Set Radio Future (both of which were wildly unpopular and sold poorly).
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So incredibly true. I remember vividly the Xbox launch, up till halo the argument was that the direct x box was going to flop, that the ps2 was already too far ahead, too many games, etc. Then this box comes out and its got an actual hard drive, built in network connectivity, but where exactly were the games that made you want it. Fable was my selling point, I bought my Xbox when Fable launched, but for millions it was halo, will always be halo. I know of 6 of my friends who own an Xbox one they bought at launch, they use their ps4 as their primary, but their Xbox one they use for media purposes and have made it very clear when guardians comes out they won't be on ps4, for a while.
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Fable <3
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microsoft turned it down. They got offered first...
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Has that actually been confirmed? As far as I know, that was just a rumor. It also doesn't make a lot of sense, especially since Microsoft has a long history of grabbing every exclusive that it can.
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Edited by w1czr1923: 1/5/2015 7:03:53 PMhttp://articles.latimes.com/print/2012/may/21/entertainment/la-et-ct-bungie-activision-contract-20120521 Doesn't talk about them turning it down, just that something happened. It's clear there was something going on between MS and bungie for a while
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Thanks for the link. That article has some interesting information, but it doesn't say anything about Microsoft being offered Destiny or Destiny content first and turning it down. If it does say this and i'm missing it, please correct me. What it does say (as far as I can tell) is that Activision's original plan was to launch Destiny on the XBOX360 and then eventually to launch it on other consoles. Obviously this didn't happen. The article doesn't say why. I think it's safe to say that the reason we didn't see it launch last gen was because it simply wasn't ready. The article doesn't say anything about Microsoft being offered or turning down exclusive content. In fact, the article only mentions what Activision intended their plan for Destiny to be in the early days of development, and goes on to say that the contract and plan may have changed. And we know is did, at least to some degree. Again, there's nothing there about Microsoft being offered exclusive content or turning it down. The only indication of this is the statement that Destiny would initially only be available on the 360 and it's successor console, and we know that ended up not being the case. It sounds more like Activision changed their mind at some point between the initial contract and later announcements. While it is possible that at one point Activision offered Microsoft an exclusive deal and Microsoft declined (which would be incredibly out of character for the company) it's just as likely that some events over that 5 year period caused Activision to alter their original plan and offer an exclusive deal to Sony instead. A bidding war is also very possibly. In fact, the only real reason I could imagine for Microsoft turning down exclusive Destiny content was if the price just became to steep. Anyway, I'm just speculating based on the information I have, which is obviously pretty incomplete.
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It doesn't say they were offered destiny but from the info we can infer that destiny was definitely offered to Microsoft first due to the fact that it was supposed to launch on 360. For some reason, that whole situation broke down and turned into a game with playstation exclusives. Honestly, just from pure speculation, we know MS was looking into titanfall and threw TONS of money at respawn for it to be exclusive. They probably didn't want to invest in 2 scifi shooters...
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And just to be super clear, I'm not saying that you're wrong. Its just really easy to speculate that something else might have happened.
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Yeah of course. It's all speculation. Who knows what could have happened. Clearly something did and I'm sure the story behind it is interesting lol
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That may well be the case. But just because the contract says Activision initially intended the game to be a XBOX exclusive doesn't mean that they ever approached Microsoft with a deal. Its very possible that once they realized the game wouldn't launch until the current console generation they changed their minds and decided to offer exclusive content to Sony instead. We know at dome point the plan did change, and it's hard to believe it was because Microsoft turned exclusive content down. Anyway, we cant know for sure and you may be right, but I find it hard to believe that Microsoft would pass up exclusive content on what was expected to be this gen's biggest new franchise. Especially since Microsoft has a pretty ruthless reputation when it comes to securing exclusive content.
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Gears of War ....
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gears of War was an XBOX360 game. I was talking about the original XBOX.
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Ah, gotcha .... this is true. :)
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JETSET!! RADIO!!! FUUUUUUTTTTTUUURRREEEEE!!!!!!!!!