George_Wrisley July 23, 2008 Features, Xbox 360 2 views Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

Eurogamer reports that Microsoft (Xbox) higher up Don Mattrick claimed that Bungie’s president, Harold Ryan, just laughed it off when he was informed they wouldn’t be doing the Halo announcement at E3:

Don Mattrick has denied that Bungie was angry about Microsoft’s
decision to pull the developer’s new Halo game from the Xbox 360 E3
press conference.

“Sure they’re disappointed. Any software creator would be
disappointed,” Mattrick, boss of the Xbox 360 business, told Eurogamer
at E3 for an exclusive interview set to run later this week.

“Harold [Ryan, Bungie president] just laughed and he said, ‘Boy, just a sign of growth inside the business, we agree’.”

Last week Ryan wrote on Bungie’s website that the team
was disappointed by Microsoft’s last-minute decision not to unveil the
game.

Pressed on the decision to pull the new Halo title from the E3
briefing, Mattrick said: “We didn’t feel we needed to show Halo to have
a great show, to pay homage to our core audience, to have a lot of
news, so it was an embarrassment of riches and we couldn’t fit it in.
How great is that? I think that’s awesome.”

Microsoft will host an event “another time of the year that’ll go deep on Halo”, Mattrick explained.

“So that’s what we’re going to do and I think we’re smart. I had
so many people come to me and say ‘look at that, that’s a measure of
growth and maturity of Microsoft – the fact that you have the best
show, the best collection of products and you didn’t even have to show
Halo’.”

Mattrick wouldn’t be drawn on the contents of the game itself,
but said there’s “an ongoing work-stream with Bungie and others” on
“all kinds of new things in development”.

“It’s awesome, it’s highly anticipated, it’s friggin’ Halo! People love it, right? I can’t say a lot about it.

“We’re going to create an opportunity where people can interact
with it, we think it’s going to be super high quality, super fun, super
innovative; it’s the easiest thing for us to message, so stay tuned.
There’s lots of good news on that.”

So maybe I was wrong about the gnashing of teeth and breaking of mop handles I suspected here .

Sure. Bungie is that out of touch with their fans’ (and their own) excitement and anticipation. Right. I’m a huge fan of the Xbox 360 (and Bungie, of course); and maybe Mattrick was trying to help Bungie save face. But c’mon.