We were as pumped as everyone else to see what was going on with Bungie, and their big countdown suggested it was both big and imminent. So we were just as disappointed when they were a no-show altogether. What’s up with that? Bungie posted yesterday:
“For the last several months, we’ve been building toward a reveal of something exciting that Bungie is working on,” studio President Harold Ryan wrote. “We were looking forward to sharing that with our fan community during the week of E3. However, those plans were changed by our publisher.”
“Publisher” being Microsoft. So why would Microsoft leave such a heavy hitter out of their press conference? Click on for some details on this debacle.
If you’ve got a goose that lays golden eggs, why would you kick it out of the coop just before the neighbors come to see? (I know, it’s a pretty awful metaphor, but bear with me) Well, maybe you’d do it if you’ve got two other golden geese to show anyway, and maybe that first goose is getting a little ruffled. See, Microsoft had Gears 2 there for their big sequel news, and then they had the jaw-dropping announcement that Final Fantasy XIII would be coming to the 360 as well. With those two they had a knockout combo, and as their presentation was already running over two hours, they decided to save that third goose for when things get dull.
Can you blame them? It’s bad for us — who doesn’t want to find out what Bungie has cooking? — but it’s sound business practice. If they’d known how unremarkable stuff was going to be at E3 this year (I mean it was nice but nothing crazy), they might have chosen otherwise and really stood above the crowd, but at least they’re manning up and saying “Yeah, we did it, and we did it because we don’t need the Halo effect any more.” I guess you have to give them some credit for that.
Nothing solid from Bungie yet, but I’m sure they’ll use this time to polish and tweak whatever it was they were going to drop on us, and then start the counter over again. please be Marathon