Bungie Joins Activision, Creates Gaming Superpower

Bungie, best known for their award-winning Halo franchise shocked the gaming world this past week when they announced an exclusive 10-year contract with Activision. Fresh on the heels of the Infinity Ward scandal, gamers let out a collective gasp when they heard the news. You see, Activision is being sued by former and current employees of Infinity Ward (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) for failure to pay as much as $625 million dollars in royalties, bonuses and stock options. On March 1, 2010, weeks before the royalties were due, Activision terminated Infinity Ward founders, Jason West and Vince Zampella. The two have founded their own company called Respawn Entertainment and several Infinity Ward employees have since resigned to work there. According to the suit, none of the developers have received the royalties for which they are entitled.

Fans loyal to the Modern Warfare team have scorned the publishing giant and even Double Fine President, Tim Schafer (Brütal Legend, Psychonauts) likened Activision to “a beast.” Bungie President, Harold Ryan isn’t deterred by the legal squabbles involving Modern Warfare 2: “From my point of view, it hasn’t affected us,” he told GamePro, “…We’ve been talking to each other for over nine months, and Bungie’s been in a unique place to have a lot of choice and it always came down to having Activision and Bungie completely aligned for our goals about what we want to do with our creative, and who we want to bring that creative to. That’s been the ultimate driver for us, and it hasn’t been affected at all by what’s been happening with the Infinity Ward guys.”

In fact, Bungie is working on an entirely new project and Ryan hopes the partnership will create a gaming powerhouse. With this deal, Bungie joins the team of Activision and Blizzard to cover a huge span of gamers across all platforms. Until now, Bungie has only been able to publish games through Microsoft consoles; so naturally, Sony is excited to finally get in on the action. "The partnership between Bungie and Activision is a big win for gamers worldwide," a Sony spokesperson told IGN. "Combining Bungie's creativity with the incredible power of PlayStation 3 will add serious muscle to action gaming. We look forward to extending Bungie's ‘next big action game universe' with PS3 users." Hearing this, it’s been asked if Halo will expand to other platforms, but the common consensus is ‘no’. Reach is said to be the final chapter in the Halo universe and remains an Xbox exclusive. Microsoft commented that the partnership between Bungie and Activision will not have any impact on the upcoming release of Halo: Reach this fall.

Will Bungie be taking over Modern Warfare? Harold Ryan says no. In fact, they’re excited to create a brand-new universe and intellectual property together. Until then, fans can jump on the Halo: Reach beta starting May 19^th – your invitation is included with each new copy of Halo 3: ODST.

You Knew It Would Happen – a Black Wii for the U.S.

Nintendo, which roughly translates as “leave luck to Heaven,” clearly lives by their name. They’re masters of marketing and here’s why: in August of 2009, gamers caught a glimpse of the “Limited Edition” Black Wii available only in Japan, and we whined. Oh, how we whined. We threw our temper tantrums when the U.K. received the “dark” bundle in November. Why, oh why, Gaming Gods, can we not have a black Wii in the U.S.?, we cried and whined and cried some more on our blogs. This whole time, I’ve refused to buy a Wii; stubbornly holding out for the black one – the one everyone said would never be released in the States. Friends played their Wii Sports and broke their expensive TV’s until they came out with a wristband. They invited me to play bowling and tennis – I read press releases for cool accessories and upcoming games and still refused to buy the white console. I sensed a marketing coup and sure as Donkey Kong, Nintendo struck when we sort of but not really expected it. Available beginning May 9, 2010, the Black Wii bundle is here.

For only $200 US, the Black Wii bundle includes a black console, remote control, nunchuk controller, Wii Motion Plus and two games: Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort (Am I the only who’s annoyed that they spell it “nunchuk” and not “nunchaku?”). Not surprisingly, pre-orders are already rolling in. You can’t tell me Nintendo just now thought of this. Revolutionizing gaming in the ‘80s and making a video game character a household name, many of us fell in love with Mario and Zelda and the concept of gaming during that time period. This lasting effect helped pave the way for what the multi-million dollar gaming industry is today. Gamers grew up to have gaming kids of their own; in fact, the Nintendo Wii is responsible for a staggering increase in the purchase of games by women (Of course, we women also buy the crap out of Xbox and PlayStation but this new market of mothers is what sealed the deal). Due to its family-friendly persona, the Wii has received a lot of criticism from gamers that refuse to consider the shiny, white console to be “hardcore” or “real gaming.” The Wii has already solidified its reputation for the “casual” and “family” gamers but as one would expect, they’re ready to go in for the kill. By coloring their console black, hardcore gamers can at least feel like they’ve kept their dignity; and with an ever-growing library of shooters and survival horror, Nintendo is back again to show the other consoles how it’s done.