You didn’t think Bungie’s long-time relationship with the Redmond behemoth was all roses and kisses, did you?

Microsoft is famous for how bad it treats its partners and for its “moody” way of dealing with things, and the fruitful collaboration with Bungie is no exception. For instance, the recently launched Zune 2 is no longer manufactured by Toshiba because Microsoft thought it has to do everything “in house”. And not even a year has passed since Zune's launch...

If we are to talk about the Halo franchise, let me just remind you about how Masterchief’s foray into the mobile world got buried because of Microsoft’s lack of interest. 

Back in September 2005, French developer In-Fusio had announced (in collaboration with Microsoft) the publication of a suite of mobile applications based on the "Halo" franchise created by Bungie Studios.

But, according to the suit filled by In-Fusio in U.S. District Court in Seattle in January this year, Microsoft decided to terminate the deal because In-Fusio hadn't made the second of four scheduled $500,000 payments. In-Fusio argued in the suit that they didn't make that second payment because Microsoft hasn't lived up to its own obligations. What exactly were those obligations?, you might ask. They simply had to approve a couple of Halo programming designs. They didn’t. During the 11 months that preceded the In-Fusio’s lawsuit, Microsoft persistently refused to accept game design concepts or simply ignored them, without little or no explanation.

With these details in mind you’ll understand better why Bungie is so keen on breaking up with Microsoft. Officially, they’re OK with their business relationship. Unofficially, it happened just like in In-Fusio’s case: community spokesperson Frank O'Connor, interviewed by Firing Squad, revealed that Bungie had to wait for Microsoft to approve almost everything, and I can only imagine how excruciating these 7 years must have been for the Halo developers (Bungie was acquired by Microsoft in 2000). Just think of what high expectations everyone had with Halo 3 (including Microsoft of course, which sees the title as a “system seller”) and you’ll understand why I’ve used the term “excruciating”…

O’Connor added that the decision to part ways with the cash cow (aka Microsoft) was made a year ago, but that the transition from a wholly-owned company to an independent developer will be assisted by unnamed “experts”. Bungie’s plans for the future are still closely related to the Xbox 360 platform and there is no intention to return to the PC or the Macintosh gaming.

However, Bungie will continue to work at what fans have requested- downloadable content for Halo 3- and will hire more people at their Kirkland, Washington offices for new projects.

Let’s just hope that with Microsoft off their back Bungie will get more creative and will start producing games at least as good as Halo 3…