E3: Bungie apologises for Halo no-show during Microsoft address

by Stevie Smith - Jul 17 2008, 11:28

Although videogame industry heavyweights Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have all now bathed in the intense media spotlight afforded them via high-profile press conferences at this year’s E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles, one of the three reportedly scaled down its wow factor dial after making the decision to cancel a significant software unveiling.

More pointedly, prior to the Los Angeles Convention Center throwing open its doors this week, there was much rumour and fan chatter regarding the E3 confirmation of a brand new addition to Microsoft’s flagship franchise Halo.

With real-time strategy epic Halo Wars already on the release horizon from Ensemble Studio, it was expected that original Halo trilogy creators Bungie would be given E3 as a springboard to launch a brand new Halo title -- only this time not built around the iconic Master Chief central character.

However, that press conference opportunity did not emerge, with publisher Microsoft instead granting centre stage to Gears of War 2, the upcoming sequel to Epic Games’ award-winning third-person shooter, and also news that previous PlayStation 3 exclusive Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the Xbox 360.

In an attempt to ease any lingering fan disappointment, Bungie has now posted an apologetic note onto its Bungie.net Web site, outlining that Microsoft altered its show plans ahead of the press conference and decided to delay Bungie’s fanfare.

“For the last several months, we’ve been building toward a reveal of something exciting that Bungie is working on,” outlined studio president Harold Ryan in the explanatory note. “We were looking forward to sharing that with our fan community during the week of E3. However, those plans were changed by our publisher.”

“We realize that many of our fans are disappointed by this turn of events… Members of the Bungie team share that disappointment,” he added.

From Microsoft’s perspective, Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Xbox division and the company’s core speaker during its Monday conference, has added to Bungie’s apology by saying the decision to pull the Halo announcement was made, in part, because the publisher had “an embarrassment of riches” to draw upon and felt that it “could do this game more justice with a more dedicated event.”

Beyond the Halo delay, Mattrick also noted that Microsoft’s E3 presentation did not include any focus on the exclusive downloadable content that it has on the horizon for Grand Theft Auto IV.

“Two big kahunas were left out of the show, and we were still able to deliver a strong performance,” he said.

It remains to be seen whether Mattrick’s comments regarding the new Halo game see Bungie regaled with an exclusive high-profile press reveal, or whether the game will have its covers torn off during August’s ‘GCDC’ event in Leipzig, Germany, or the ‘E for All’ trade show scheduled for October in Los Angeles.

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