Bungie Blue Balls, Courtesy of Microsoft

by Roly Reyes on July 18, 2008 at 12:23 am

Update on the previous Bungie cock-block snafu: Microsoft, as the publishing giant apparently behind Bungie’s latest game, rescinded their green light just hours shy of Bungie’s official announcement. Bungie was about to make us all climax, but Microsoft stepped in with its shotgun and forced them to stop. This does not make us happy, Microsoft… not happy at all.

The countdown screen with the letter to the fans stayed up for about as long as the countdown itself was set to last. At that point, it was business as usual at Bungie.net, including an update to the community on the situation from community manager Luke Smith, featuring a useful and equally entertaining mini-Q&A:

“1. OMG! The announce was posted at 7! This is all part of the plan.
The news was broken to us shortly before 7 p.m. and we decided to keep with tradition to make a clean break.

2. Why leave the splash page up if it’s not happening?
We left the splash page up for the folks who didn’t see the message or were planning on tuning in the following morning before the news vanished into Bungie.net’s ether.

3. But Harold Ryan is only a TESTER this has to be fake!
Harold was a tester, but assumed the position of President a while ago. Crazy Wiki’s and their misinformation.”

In addition, the LA Times had the opportunity to interview the Microsoft Senior Vice President for Interactive Entertainment Business, better known as Don Mattrick. Rightfully so, they asked about the precarious situation they put themselves in by shoving Bungie to the side. Apparently, it was cut to make room for Microsoft to act like Nintendo with games like You’re In The Movies and appeal to the proverbial alpha moms who won’t ever hear about their press conference. Intelligently, he referred to it as “an embarrassment of riches”.

But we’re not buying it. What really happened was, Microsoft caught wind that neither Nintendo nor Sony had anything to top “omgz FFXIII 360! PS3 are doomed!” Even Mattrick himself effectively revealed that they killed it at the last minute: “We felt we could do this game more justice with a more dedicated event.”

So, X08, pretty much.

Source: LA Times via Joystiq and Bungie.net