A Halo Universe Tries to Sparkle Without its Creator
When Microsoft’s (MSFT) much-anticipated new videogame, Halo: Reach, lands on shelves Wednesday, it will be the end of a chapter in the $2 billion franchise’s nine-year history.
Halo: Reach is the last installment in the series that will be made by Bungie Studios, the game development shop that created the franchise, nurtured it through most of its half-dozen iterations and is now moving on to other projects since spinning off from Microsoft three years ago. Microsoft will continue to own the Halo brand and has formed a new studio called 343 Industries that’s responsible for the ever-expanding array of Halo products that it envisions in the decades (yes, decades) to come.
Frank O’Connor and Bonnie Ross are the two executives at 343 Industries in charge of keeping the blood pumping at Microsoft’s Halo business in the post-Bungie era. It’s a scary prospect: think “Star Wars” losing George Lucas.
