Microsoft, Bungie Explain Halo’s No Show

Microsoft admits to nixing the planned announcement of a new Halo game to save time in their E3 press conference.

Rumors swirled this week about an upcoming Halo game to be announced at Microsoft’s E3 press conference, but when the moment came, Microsoft and Halo developer Bungie kept mum. In the wake of disappointment, Halo and Microsoft have both confirmed that another Halo game is on the way, and explained why it didn’t show up at this year’s E3.

Bungie president Harold Ryan first posted a message on the company’s official Web site. “For the last several months, we’ve been building toward a reveal of something exciting that Bungie is working on,” he wrote. “We were looking forward to sharing that with our fan community during the week of E3. However, those plans were changed by our publisher.”

That publisher – Microsoft – offered its own explanation on Thursday. According to the LA Times, the company pulled Bungie’s presentation to trim down the length of Microsoft’s entire event. “We had an embarrassment of riches,” senior vice president of Microsoft’s Xbox games business, Don Mattrick said. “We felt we could do this game more justice with a more dedicated event.”

So while Halo fans are out in the cold for now, they can at least rest assured that the promise of a new game lingers just over the horizon.