Microsoft 'Halo' creators to be separate company

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This is rational business

If Microsoft thinks that it will profit more by investing in a company that will not focusonly on Microsoft platforms, this is a rationalized business decision.

Microsoft will return to Windows in its ownactivities because this iuswhere it has expertize, and will let "Halo" develop its own methods, provided that it is more profitable to Microsoft in the long term.

It'strue that, today's games are very expensive to develop, and their business life must be expansible to other domains than just the Xbox which will not survive long enough.

So allowing any developed game to work also other platforms, including those where there's a mesurable market opportunity (consoles like Sony, Nintendo, ... PCs and Macs, derived games for mobile appliances, derived rights in other industries...) falls certainly out of the scope of the current Microsoft competence, and finding other partners in other parts of the industry is a good and rational decision.

Immediately, the split will have a cost, but as Microsoft keeps a significant stake on the separated division, it can still profit from it, financially (and Microsoft will certainly make business with it by selling to Halo newer technologies for the Microsoft-supported platforms); the immediate cost will be recovered by the partners that will want to invest in Halo, but that don't want to invest now into Microsoft that restricts their development to other platforms.

Strategically, and politically, this will resolve possibly growing conflicts of interests (which are not necessarily bad, because it forces Microsoft to negociate instead of deciding alone).

Posted by: PhilippeV   Posted on: 10/08/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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