"Bungie was the best game developer for the Macintosh."

And Lawrence has the best surfing in Kansas.

Alas, this is probably the apex of Halo. MS is probably smart to let it go. Look at Eidos and the Tomb Raider franchise if you want to see what happens when a publisher beats a product to death and does not know when to get out.

"(Back before Microsoft acquired it in 2000, Bungie made games for, among other platforms, the Mac.)"

At the time Gates's monopoly swallowed up Bungie and Halo, Bungie was the best game developer for the Macintosh.

They invented the concept of the physics model with the game Marathon, which debuted on the Mac a little after Doom. Marathon was an incredible advance. The physics model allowed for free fall, trajectories (you could waste a bad guy behind a wall with a grenade or bounce one around a corner if you were good enough).

You could get the triple shield bonus and stand on a grenade and blow yourself into higher spaces. There was nothing like at the time for Wintel machines.

Myth took it even further. Rain made explosives reliable, elevation gave archers better range, body parts littered the landscape ("Now you can blow things up!")

By the time they created Halo, Bungie was pretty cross-platform, but they always took care of their Macintosh fans.

This is a glorious day for computer gaming, and the Macintosh in particular. Bet Linux gets some sugar too.

Woo Hoo!

They suck all the money they can up front and then if the company fails it's not Redmond's problem.

It's not like Microsoft to spin off a winner. (Heck, it's not like Microsoft to spin off a loser.) I can only imagine that Bungie was facing an internal revolt that threatened to drain significant talent.