Cobalt 7 wrote:I thought that after the Myth 2 Bug Debacle Bungie had to sell part of the company to Take 2 in order to handle the losses? Then when it came time to be bought by Microsoft, Take 2 was given it's sum of Money, and got to keep the intellectual property Bungie had developed during that time.
I never heard of any lawsuits or anything, what Myth 2 Bug debacle are you referring to that Bungie would have needed many millions to deal with?
The sequence of events was:
1999-08-12: TakeTwo purchases a 19.9% stake in Bungie and in returns gets EXCLUSIVE rights to distribute four Bungie games in North America including Oni, and HALO - which was under the development at the time!!!
TakeTwo did NOT get rights to distribute any older games - e.g. Marathon or Myth.
2000-06-18: Microsoft purchases Bungie AND TakeTwo's 19.9% stake of Bungie. In Exchange TakeTwo got OWNERSHIP of one of Bungie's Two upcoming games (ONI) _and_ the rights to both Myth Games (and the franchise itself). It appears TakeTwo traded their distribution rights to 4 as yet untested games (e.g. HALO, ONI and two unnamed (unreleased/undeveloped?) games) for OWNERSHIP of the ready to release Oni and the two tried and true best selling Myth games.
You also have to consider when this deal was made. The Myth series continued to be going strong, and Oni had just come out. I'm sure Take 2 felt that they were worth more than Microsoft was willing to pay.
But then again this is all rampant speculation (and I think a little bit from G4's show Icons.)
Oni hadn't been released yet when TakeTwo bought part of Bungie. When Oni's release date was announced it was announced that a subsidiary of TakeTwo would be handling the distribution.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/069/069525p1.html