Former Microsoft executive Ed Fries says that Steve Jobs was angry with Microsoft when it acquired Bungie Software, makers of Halo.
“He was mad at [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer and phoned him up and was angry because we’d just bought the premier Mac game developer and made them an Xbox developer.”
Fries recounts that Jobs made a heated call to Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer following Microsoft’s acquisition of Bungie, then well-known as a Mac-friendly game company behind hits including the Marathon and Myth series, as well as Oni. Halo had then been in development for both Mac and Windows and had even been featured on the keynote stage of a Macworld Expo.
Following Microsoft’s acquisition of Bungie, Halo became a showcase title for the then-fledgling Xbox console. Destineer Studios would eventually publish Halo for the Mac – something that Fries takes partial credit for as well. Read on for details.
Steve Jobs ‘raged at Microsoft’ over game studio sale [Develop]
Bungie was the premier Mac Game developer at the time. I’m appalled the Justice department allowed the deal to go through when it’s clear MSFT was doing it, in part, to attack Apple. Apple gets the last laugh, though. While Halo is a great game, the Xbox platform was a huge mistake for MSFT and loses money most quarters.
What Mac user wasn’t mad at the time? I know I was. I had played the entire series and was looking forward to more from Bungie. We were all proud of them and proud that they were Mac only.
They certainly weren’t Mac only at the time. Marathon II had been released for Windows, both Myth games came out for Windows, and Halo had been announced for Mac and PC.
I should have specified, the original Marathon and then afterwards were very Mac centric. The games came out on the mac first. Not exactly typical, to say the least.
I think the important thing people need to remember is that Bungie was actively looking for a suitor. Microsoft didn’t just wake up and decided they wanted Bungie to hurt Apple; Bungie needed a white knight to finance the continued development of Halo in order to stay in business.
Also, Bungie had effectively diversified its development process to offer both Mac and Windows games at the time – it’s not like the company was a Mac-only developer, as I point out to the other poster below. Assuming MS’s acquisition should have triggered some sort of antitrust alarm is simply ignorant of where Bungie’s business model was at the time.
Having said that, I certainly recall a lot of sturm und drang from the mouths and keyboards of Mac gamers in that era. Microsoft’s acquisition of Bungie was – and remains – an incredibly traumatic point for many Mac gamers. Though no one can argue that the Mac had already suffered greatly as a game platform, almost from the start – the Bungie deal was only yet another body blow.
Yes and I think that was really the point. It seemed, as if because of Bungie, that the Mac gaming situation could turn around.