Well now this is a surprise: Microsoft sets Bungie free

Bungie.net : Inside Bungie : News:

"Bungie and Microsoft Corp. today announced a plan for Bungie Studios, the developers of Microsoft’s ‘Halo’ franchise, to become a privately held independent company, Bungie, LLC, in which Microsoft will hold a minority equity interest.

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It will be interesting to see if Microsoft has retained some kind of exclusive rights on the Halo series. Halo, which was first demoed running on a Mac way back at Macworld in 1999 - and I remember the palpable excitement in the audience at what was, for the time, a revolutionary and Mac-only game.