Bungie: E3 announcement cut 'no laughing matter'

by Randy Nelson { Jul 24th 2008 at 10:00PM }

It's a case of "he said, he said" in the latest chapter of Bungiegate. This time around, the news centers on a comment made by Xbox senior VP Don Mattrick regarding Bungie president Harold Ryan's reaction to being told his company's new Halo game announcement was being struck from Microsoft's pre-E3 media briefing.

According to Eurogamer, the site was told by Mattrick during the show that Ryan had "just laughed" and said "We agree" upon receiving the news. Ryan recalls the conversation quite differently. ""Keeping things clean, I certainly didn't agree with the decision to delay our news until sometime after E3," he told Eurogamer today, adding, "Bungie is always concerned first and foremost with our fans. Whenever we are prevented from exceeding their positive expectations it is not a laughing matter." Oh snap. Begun, these Halo Wars have.

Tags: bungie, don-mattrick, halo, harold-ryan, microsoft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Scott @ Jul 24th 2008 10:12PM

Well it better be good

Balla360 @ Jul 25th 2008 12:24AM

It can't possibly live up to the hype at this point.

Bungie needs to remember that Microsoft made them rock stars. I know it sucks that they're under the thumb of "the man," but "the man" took them from a niche Mac game to the 800-pound gorilla that the rest of the industry takes its cues from. Suck it up, Bungie, and show some respect to the dude who brought you to the dance.

Haggard @ Jul 25th 2008 8:34AM

I don't think Halo is exactly paving the way of the games industry. Sure, they were decent games, but 94% average for no innovation?

Kizzle @ Jul 25th 2008 9:01AM

"Bungie needs to remember that Microsoft made them rock stars."

Uh, no. It could definitely be argued that without Halo, the first XBox never really gets off the ground. Bungie was zipping along just fine with Halo before MS threw a truckload of money at them to jump ship from the Mac to be XBox exclusive (at the time).

Yes, MS helped them with some PR, but it wasn't a case of one making the other. They scratched each other's backs.

Leobebes @ Jul 25th 2008 12:42PM

@haggard

Really? Because of Halo the majority of PS3's big budget titles are console FPS's which Halo made popular.

mmmCake @ Jul 25th 2008 2:27PM

1. it will be good.
2. @ Balla360, yes its true that microsoft put bungie on the map. but bungie put microsoft on the map in video games. with out halo:ce there would be no xbox 360.

Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Jul 24th 2008 10:13PM

Halo=Serious Business.

Duke @ Jul 25th 2008 9:54AM

Yup. I think the Master Chief of Operations should explain to us exactly what happened here.

albinogoldfish @ Jul 24th 2008 10:15PM

so what, is Joystiq trying to be a guidance counselor or a ring leader?

mr mobius @ Jul 24th 2008 10:18PM

There is a difference?

Lone Starr @ Jul 24th 2008 10:28PM

1. Post controversial Halo story
2. Flame war ensues
3. ???
4. Profit

aristokrat @ Jul 24th 2008 10:43PM

Master Chief is the real ring leader here. Can't wait...

*heads into Lone Wolves*

albinogoldfish @ Jul 24th 2008 10:59PM

????=equals page hits

Brian @ Jul 24th 2008 10:19PM

"vehicle makes frequent stops"

CGamble20 @ Jul 24th 2008 10:23PM

I really hope its not another Halo. Halo 3 was so disappointing, and my expectations weren't even that high. It wasn't that great of a game (personal rating 8.7 out of 10).

We've moved on to bigger and better shooters, Bungie should also.

But, I have great respect for them still. Next game should be great. (hopefully)

Churchy @ Jul 24th 2008 10:40PM

I don't know this "we" you speak of, as Halo 3 currently sits at top most played on Live.

Maybe "you've" moved on, but there's currently 200k~ people playing H3 at this very moment (a slow halo night) that haven't moved anywhere.

Foetoid @ Jul 24th 2008 10:44PM

The manager at my local EB Games is a good friend of mine. He said that Halo 3 was thier most returned game ever within the 7 day return policy. I too was sorely dissapointed by Halo 3, only to have my faith in FPS games restored fully by Metroid Prime 3.

Nick the Hero of Canton @ Jul 24th 2008 10:47PM

8.7/10 isn't that great of a game?

Can I by pot from you?

EliteBeatsAgent08 @ Jul 24th 2008 10:55PM

He's a hater...probably a sony fanboy.

Typically I ignore these bitter gamers.

DangerMouse @ Jul 24th 2008 11:12PM

You're doing a hell of a job.

Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Jul 24th 2008 11:19PM

Lol what? last time I checked, 8.7 is pretty damn good.

Shmil @ Jul 24th 2008 11:25PM

so the reason you go into a post about a game and company that don't like to do what exactly? you just came here to start some shit.
different games for different people deal with it.

Magnificen7 @ Jul 25th 2008 4:53AM

@Foetoid That's BS. I worked at EB and country wide numbers showed games like Lair and Heavenly Sword returning at a much higher rate. You have to remember, they sold a lot more copies of Halo, but the rates of return were no where near these other games.

Alex Sohn @ Jul 25th 2008 9:01AM

What an a$$, 8.7 out of 10 = dissapointing? It's hard to believe but it looks like your standards are tighter then your b-hole

Duke @ Jul 25th 2008 10:29AM

How dare the game not be a perfect 10! Burn them all!

Hey Foetoid, thanks for dropping by from Wiifanboy. "I too was sorely dissapointed by Halo 3, only to have my faith in FPS games restored fully by Metroid Prime 3."

C'mon now. Thats just funny. Metroid is supposed to be great and all, but its obvious you are full of it by saying that its the game that restored your faith in FPS. In fact, I can't believe you lost faith in FPS because of Halo 3 alone - one game of 100's of that genre.

Erik @ Jul 24th 2008 10:24PM

I get the feeling that this may lead to an even biggere gap between Bungie and Microsoft. Bungie has already split from them, but stuff like this may keep Bungie from supporting Microsoft as much.

Waqman @ Jul 24th 2008 10:27PM

It looks like Microsoft thought Lips and Mii-like avatars were more important.

El Capitaine @ Jul 25th 2008 1:11AM

or worse..."You're in the Movies"

That took like...20 minutes. And it was crap. I can very easily compare that to the Wii Sports Resort part of Nintendo's conference...

Seriously, what has happened with this gen? I understand casual games are the defining point of this gen thanks mostly to the Wii but...
The people who go to E3 and the people who read blogs and news posts from E3 are not 'casual gamers.'

Casual gamers go into a store in spring 2009, see Wii Sports Resort, think 'oh...a new Wii Sports!' and buy it. They certainly don't turn into G4 to hear about it months in advance from a press conference.

Same with Microsoft. During their presser, I changed the channels back and forth at least 5 times, wondering when that minigame crap would over. I don't want that crap, I want some more Bungie.

Lametastic @ Jul 25th 2008 4:04AM

I couldn't agree more El Capitaine. You took the words right out of my mouth. Er--right out of my fingers. You took the text right out of my fingers. There.

Great comment.

JoeTheBlow @ Jul 25th 2008 5:06AM

I only hope Sony doesn't go down the same route.
None of the casual crap there, some real quality gamers games going cheap on PSN. PS3 is taking the "gamers console" crown now.

I can only hope the Xbox experiment fails and they leave the kids happy with their toy console so we can play some proper games.

Monkeydog @ Jul 25th 2008 5:44AM

But you have to remember El Capitaine, E3 gets wide media attention. Nothing else is comparable to it in the gaming community. If a company wants to reach out it's going to do it at the event even casual gamers will hear about in the news.

Core gamers stay on top of video game news, they don't need a big convention to be told what games are being announced and when. Look at what we did to Megaman 9 and Chrono Trigger DS.

Core gamers don't need E3, we don't, and we complain about it for really no reason whatsoever other than it holds memories to a good deal of it. But all in all, when it comes down to it, you don't need to be told about the biggest games at E3, you don't, E3 has changed, and the core is going to find the bigger games out the second the information is released no matter where it's coming from.

Casual gamers are not. They're not deranged like we are. :P

Duke @ Jul 25th 2008 10:33AM

Yes JoeTheBlow, lets hope MS fails so your love of the PS3 will dominate the world. You're not too bright if you think that it helps you for the console you detest to fail. Maybe you should look into how markets work.

Honestly, its great that you can claim the PS3 has taken some sort of crown. Its just too bad that there is not one piece of evidence to show that. Desperate fanboys make desperate arguments.

JoeTheBlow @ Jul 25th 2008 4:32PM

I didn't mean i want MS to fail, i meant i want MS to stop trying to take the casual game market from the Wii, which you can be sure has been the focus of every meeting for the past 6 months.

Let the kids and casuals have the casual console and let our hardcore consoles stay hardcore.

macgyver @ Jul 24th 2008 10:29PM

Microsoft is getting ready to shoot themselves in the foot! sure, let's piss Bungie off and send them to start developing for the PS3. smooth move M$oft...smooth move.

Snowblind @ Jul 25th 2008 6:35AM

Bungie can't develop for the PS3, they still essentially work for Microsoft, despite not being officially "owned" by them anymore.

Even if they did find a way to leave, and work for someone else, they'd have to completely drop the Halo franchise, which thus far they've worked very hard to protect. And considering it's their one franchise that's worth a damn, I'm not sure they're going to be quite so eager to get away from MS over something as trivial as this.

Whatever game they were developing, it's not coming anytime soon, and MS wanted to focus on games coming this year, especially after Sony and Nintendo's disasterous conferences. It's very clear they just wanted to save a big announement like this, for when one of the other companies do something big and get some leverage over them. Let it go, I really don't see what the fuss is about.

Dwag @ Jul 24th 2008 10:33PM

They're working on at least two games hopefully one of them is a new IP and another Halo I can't wait for cause we all know its gonna come out in 09(hopefully it won't be Halo)

Vault @ Jul 25th 2008 9:58AM

I feel like Halo should be over, honestly. Master Chief has his little swan song in three and then it ends with him. Sure, it's a little open ended, but die-hard fans already have it figured out. The best stories leave something for interpretation.

Bryan @ Jul 24th 2008 10:35PM

Announce your casual gaming bulls*** at E for All, Microsoft. It's the perfect place.

Mr Khan @ Jul 25th 2008 11:40AM

Not really. Since E3 is now primarily a press event, it has become the better venue for the casual stuff. E for All, PAX, and TGS should be the focal point for the meatier games, while GDC focuses on developer stuff

aristokrat @ Jul 24th 2008 10:45PM

I want more Halo story! Mock me if you want, but I've always enjoyed it (maybe partly because Master Chief always had such a badass voice). Halo 3 multiplayer is fine, the graphics are fine, they should just expand the storyline into the shield world (or whatever that thing is). Like Halo 3: Episode 1 or whatever. That would be awesome.

EliteBeatsAgent08 @ Jul 24th 2008 10:46PM

Can never have enough of the Halo...

Bring it on Bungie. I'm ready.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Jul 24th 2008 10:48PM

That's more than enough milking of this story.

We get it, they're freakin' rebels. They don't fit in at Microsoft cause they care about the fans, not just money. They're not like those Vista guys.

Okay. Great. Now, can we just skip to the announcement?

Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Jul 24th 2008 11:20PM

Lol what? Do you honestly think that Bungie cares less about money and more for it's fans?

I laugh.

Shmil @ Jul 24th 2008 11:26PM

fans are money

nick @ Jul 24th 2008 11:07PM

Anyone who keeps saying that the plans were changed by their publisher, to me is bitter. He could have just simply said the plan was changed.

Whatever this is, airing the matter in public is not necessarily a good thing. It's only going to taint whatever ends up being the next announcement from those involved.

At the same time, games get shuffled around all the time. It's not something new. If it's something I'm interested in, such a move may not necessary sit well with me, but I don't know what we're talking about here, other than something from Bungie. And if it's not ready, it's not ready. Without know what it is, it's hard for me to get excited about it.

DangerMouse @ Jul 24th 2008 11:11PM

Well I thought it was funny.

EliteBeatsAgent08 @ Jul 24th 2008 11:27PM

Lol I'm not quite getting all the backlash either to be honest.

To my knowledge this is like the 3rd article regarding this story.

And we should be glad Joystiq doesn't do like Engadget and post a crapload of articles one after another with 90% of them being utterly useless and unnecessary.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Jul 25th 2008 12:20AM

This is the 4th not counting the posts before the announcement testing of the announcement. From my count (that I just made).

I think your mention that other blogs posts lots of unnecessary articles fits in well right here. I ask, how does this article affect your buying decisions? How does it affect your enjoyment of games? It doesn't help you with either of these.