Bungie: If Halo DS existed it wasn’t from us

Last week at E3 I had a casual chat with Brian Gerard and Frank O’Connor from Bungie. We started talking about Halo 3 and they are proud that it’s on Famitsu’s top 20 list. The Famitsu guys loved how the turrets can have a third person view. Soon the chat deviated from Halo 3’s increased accessibility to their relationship with Team Ninja and later Halo DS. The short story is it may be real, but it isn’t from Bungie.

FO: To be honest we have a very close relationship with Team Ninja specifically. So that was a no brainer. We love Itagaki and we love the DOA games. We just came up with a fictional character that would work in their universe and…

BG: That actually just came up a couple of years ago after E3 over drinks. It’s like we love your stuff you love our stuff we should do something together.

We’re never going to see Ryu in Halo are we?

FO: You should never say never.

(laughs) OK

FO: I’m not going to say you’re going to see Ryu in Halo, but I would say that our relationship with Itagaki is alive and well.

Are there any places you would like to bring characters from Halo universe into another cameo?

FO: No, but there are things we are sort of comfortable with like the Ensemble RTS. We trust those guys and Halo started life as an RTS so it’s a natural progression to see it return to its roots.

I think I’m going to ask the forbidden question… was there ever Halo for the DS?

FO: I believe we got pitched for it several times.

BG: Every once in awhile it comes up. Somebody out there some developer pitches and tries to make it happen.

FO: Microsoft does publish DS games or licenses them, I think to THQ. 

BG: It’s very likely that somebody at some point in time created a prototype and tried to pitch it.

FO: Which is probably what Casamassina is talking about.

BG: But there has never been an officially funded or sanctioned development of any sort of DS Halo game. 

Would you ever like to see that [Halo on the DS]?

FO: I mean if it wasn’t a drain on resources. The problem is the DS is not an FPS console right? It’s not an FPS handheld. There really is no such thing. If we did something cool I would like to see it. But I would rather see the Halo IP on any handheld system applied to a different genre because handhelds don’t necessarily do FPS well.

BG: Right we’ve already got that covered.

FO: Maybe a side scrolling shoot em up or whatever, but not necessarily an FPS.

Would you ever rule out seeing Halo on a portable platform?

FO: We would never rule it out, but there is nothing going on right now.

BG: You should have asked Peter Moore that question, he’s the guy!

I wish I did! We got into a discussion about Final Fantasy XIII.