Microsoft: 'Bungie relationship unchanged'

Microsoft has said that its relationship with Bungie "remains unchanged" following the studio's ten-year publishing agreement with Activision Blizzard.

The Halo developer, which split from Microsoft in 2007, announced today that Activision will exclusively publish all of its future games "based on the new intellectual property on multiple platforms and devices".

In response to the deal, a Microsoft spokesman told CVG that its relationship with Bungie as a developer of games for the Xbox 360 platform remains the same.

"Our partnership with Bungie as a first-party developer for Xbox 360 remains unchanged, and right now we're deeply engaged with them on the development of Halo Reach, which is poised to be the biggest game of 2010," he said.

According to Activision Blizzard chief operating officer Thomas Tippl, the "alliance" deal with Bungie took around nine months to negotiate.

"We are always looking at opportunities to bring great games to gamers worldwide there are very few studios in the world of the calibre of Bungie, with the track record of making great games that sell," he told Kotaku.

"As such we began discussions with Bungie about nine months ago."

Despite terms of the agreement not being disclosed, Bungie will remain an independent company and also retain full ownership of its intellectual property.