Halo, one of the most popular video games in the last two decades, has changed hands a few times since its original owner, Bungie, took over. Bungie Inc., a Washington-based independent game publisher, created the original Halo as well as the popular game Destiny.
From 2000 to 2007, Microsoft owned Bungie. According to The Wall Street Journal, Xbox Game Studios a division of Microsoft has been developing new Halo games since Bungie was spun off, and it still owns the Halo intellectual property.
Sony’s next acquisition is Bungie, but Microsoft still owns the IP rights to Halo and its related games.
With the new $3.6 billion deal, Sony will acquire Bungie, Inc. Bungie is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Bungie is well-known for its popular game franchise, Destiny, in addition to being the original developer of Halo.
According to CBS News, Bungie began in 1991 with games like Myth and Marathon, which were designed for personal computers.
Why does Bungie not own Halo anymore?
Bungie has been independently owned and then licensed to Activision Blizzard since Microsoft spun out Bungie in 2007 and retained intellectual property rights to Halo. Now, Sony is racing to keep up with Microsoft in the video game industry.