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When Microsoft purchased Bungie during the dawn of the XBox, it would be unfair to say that there wasn’t a little concern for the ripple effect the move would have on the industry. Despite the optimistic flair embodied in the pro-Microsoft camp, Halo’s lack of existence on anything but the XBox for many a month was corroboration of the fears developed by the buyout months prior. Bungie, previously an unfouled gaming company with a strong desire to foster cross-platform gaming, having established itself with such titles as Marathon on the Apple Macintosh platform, had suddenly become Microsoft’s lapdog, placing its perceived development mentality on the back burner. Meanwhile, they developed Halo as an XBox exclusive, simultaneously reaching legendary status in the console world, and destroying much of the integrity that Mac and PC gamers thought Bungie had.

Bungie’s fall from grace has almost entirely been masked by the success of Halo. The phenomenon has since been repeated, and the only thing keeping it from becoming a pattern is the fact that the gaming industry is being gobbled up by major corporations everwhere, Microsoft or not.

Peter Molyneux, the game developer responsible for such titles as Populous and Black and White, paving his legend with words such as “innovation” and “never before”, has dawned the Microsoft robe and sold his company, Lionhead Studios, to Microsoft. As part of the deal, Molyneux will work for Microsoft, likely to keep games such as his last title, Fable, XBox 360-exclusives.

In many ways, the move was to be expected, given the lackluster reviews for Black & White 2. The ingenius game concept (and in many ways all of Molyneux’s titles), performed better as technology demonstrations than popular retail games. Nonetheless, while people may have had issues wih certain aspects of these games, no one can deny the success of breaking the gaming mold, as Molyneux has done since before Lionhead was even formed (Bullfrog, Molyneux’s previous company, was responsible for unique games like Dungeon Keeper).

The Microsoft purchase is interesting in other ways that do not prompt a need for sadness, however. The move illustrates Microsoft’s confirmation that Nintendo, with first-party titles, has been on the right track all along, while Sony has instead pushed exclusivity deals with third-party developers like Rockstar. The push for exclusivity, ideally done in-house, appears to be an important factor in the next round of console wars, and Microsoft intends to exert itself in this area second only to Nintendo. With western developers like Molyneux backing Microsoft’s move, if anyone still doubted Microsoft’s future in console gaming, they ought stop now.

Sadly, like Bungie before him, the sale will likely place PC gaming second to XBox 360 in Molyneux’s gaming forcast, with PC “ports” coming months after his titles reach the 360. The disappointment here comes not only in the wait, but in the fact that console controls will always be a forethought in Molyneux’s future titles. No more interesting control schemes as per Black & White, I’d imagine, and that stripping of innovation will be very contrary to Molyneux’s pioneering spirit. Perhaps, with another title or two under his belt, Molyneux will leave Lionhead as he had Bullfrog after its sale to Electronic Arts. Either way, hopefully his spirit will not die under Microsoft’s watch.

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