Apple boss made angry Ballmer call when Xbox bought Mac experts and Halo creators Bungie
Steve Jobs’ capacity to accurately detect the blockbuster potential of consumer goods may go beyond the realm of MP3 players and smartphones and right into video games.
New information has come to light revealing the Apple CEO was furious to lose Mac-loving Bungie to Microsoft back when Halo was an unknown quantity.
Ed Fries, the former vice president of game publishing at Microsoft, and the man central to Microsoft’s acquisition of Rare and Bungie, told Develop he had to personally broker a deal with Apple back in 2000 to appease the indomitable Macintosh boss.
“As soon as we announced we bought Bungie, Steve Jobs called,” Fries said.
“He was mad at [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer and phoned him up and was angry because we’d just bought the premier Mac game developer and made them an Xbox developer.”
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Bungie, which was established in 1991, had throughout the Nineties built games for Apple’s Mac, from the Marathon trilogy to Oni. The studio, then based out in Chicago, was also building a relatively obscure FPS called Halo for Mac and PC.
Yet Apple’s deal with Bungie was flung aside when Microsoft bought the studio in 2000, for a figure Develop believes to be around $30 million.
Fries said Jobs needed placating once the acquisition news reached Apple’s Infinite Loop headquarters.
“So, during the day, I got an email from Steve Ballmer asking me to phone Steve Jobs and calm him down about the whole thing,” he said.
“Anyway, we did this deal with Apple where we’d port some PC games to the Macintosh and help Peter Tamte create this company to do it, and I had to go to a Mac developer conference and get on stage and talk about this whole new partnership. It was a pretty strange time.”
Fries, who left Microsoft in 2004, made the revelation in an eye-opening interview with Develop – set to be published soon – where, for the first time, he provides his own account into how the Xbox system was born.
I'll never forget that day. I was woking for Apple back then and we were really stoked since we just released the Blue and White G3s. Apple got with Bungie and created a showcase that we ran alongside the announcement of the new G3 series (a very early version of Halo). Around a year later the pillars of anticipation came crashing down when we heard that Microsoft just bought Bungie.
Honestly though it was a great move for Bungie. Look where they are now. The Mac game scene has gotten better, but still is to small for any developer to solely depend on (iOS excluded). Imagine what it was like back in the early 00's. Bungie would have been nuts to do otherwise.
You throw down the phone and tell Jobs to call you back when he calmed down! Until taht time he can go fudge himself in the peehole. You simply don't let anybody shout at you unless he has a good reason, and Jobs didn't. Furthermore Apple and their fanboys insult and laugh at MS almost every Apple Fan gathering and news outing. So really, I don't think he has any credit that he can shout and tantrum around and still get his way.
But then, he was given his way far to much, that Disabled space parking jerk that he is. (Sorry, Linux fan here, I don't like Microsoft at all, but Jobs really can get me going from time to time).
Remember, Halo was originally demoed on a Mac, at an Apple event. It was set to become THE blockbuster, must have, killer app for the Mac.
Then Microsoft poached it right out from under Apple and killed the Mac development. No wonder Jobs was pissed off
@Andy: Killer app? You have got to be kidding me. Microsoft wanted it as a reasonably good FPS for xbox, where it would have a chance to shine. If it'd just been released for PC and Mac, it would've faded into obscurity. How many Top PC FPS lists do you see the Halo franchise on?
Steve Jobs suffers from "baby stomp" syndrome. If he wasnt such a micromanager that had to control every aspect of apple, he wouldnt have spend some much time on it and microsoft wouldnt have aquired the bungie. He so damn secretive and controlling. Its only now since Android is breathing down his neck that he decided to allow Adobe to be able to develop for iOS. I own both PC and Mac and PS3 and XBox360. For FPS games...its PC. For racing sims its PS3. For multiplayer frenzys its Xbox360. For browsing web and checking email...it's Mac.
The Gov't should have brought antitrust charges on that that one; clearly MSFT did it to hurt the Mac. It was a business mistake for MSFT in the end. Halo was a great enough game that they have continued to stick with the money-losing XBox franchise when they should have abandoned it years ago.
@Tom B: no, MS did that to get a studio that was not affiliated with other PC and console publisher, and that has a decent experience in game development. Frankly, I'm not sure MS bothered with the 1,5% market share of Apple at that time (not to mention that MS was the pouveyor of Office for Mac, which was (and still is) an important business for the Mac).
@Emmanuel Deloget: It wasn't the only time MSFT made a direct attack on Apple. The bought Connectix, the company that made the virtual PC Windows emulator, before Apple moved over to Intel.
Ed Fries related this story in Opening the Xbox, a book published in 2002. I know because I wrote it. :)
I have used both Mac and PCs since they were invented, and have gravitated primarily to the Mac at home (aside from my wife's PC) because they were more robust on levels where it counted for me.
As I recall, Jobs never truly supported games - there was a time back when he was putting the whole industry down. With Jobs it's always about money - when he finally saw the potential in the Game industry, the he changed his tune, but only because he saw a chance to sell more Macs.
And why not? Power to him. Just like all of the smart folks at the top of this game, its never about empowering people into the future (as the rhetoric often flies). It's about engaging pocketbooks now to create future markets. There's nothing wrong with that in my book, but let's call it like it is.
I own an Apple Pippin, So I know the extent of Apple's video gamign expertise >.>
I'm still enraged and it's been 10 years. Thank god for Penny Arcade. I'm not sure how else I could have gotten through it. Remember this strips?
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/6/21/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/6/23/
It was a great move for MSFT, it is dumb to say otherwise. The Halo franchise has pretty much built the Xbox platform, I seriously doubt that the Xbox would be in the position it is in now had they not recruited Bungie into their game studio and Halo as an exclusive. Remember the Xbox was a new and un-established platform at the time, sure they lost money on the first Xbox, but they are one of the more profitable divisions in MSFT now. There were major questions if the top developers would even publish games on the first Xbox, but now in the current generation it is used as the lead SKU. Without Halo, MSFT would not be in this position. And no there is not a reason for antitrust law suit, Bungie was a privet developer who needed a publisher, MSFT took the investment one step further and bought them outright. Apple, Sony, Nintendo, EA, all could have made an offer, and maybe Apple did, but Bungie made the deal that they thought was best for their company.
So Apple, the company which basically shit on gamers, for years, was angry to loose one of their few game developers?! That's amusing.
[Back then] Fries should have reminded Jobs that Macs aren't gaming platforms, thanks to their limited market penetration and reluctance to develop on a platform already established as one for hacks and wannabes, such as self-titled 'artists' and 'musicians'.
What Ed Fries is saying doesn't make any sense: “I got an email from Steve Ballmer asking me to phone Steve Jobs and calm him down"
Why would Balmer even care that Jobs was pissed? I understand that MS has some relation with Apple (I think they may have even had some money invested in Apple at that point). The DOJ was also persuing antitrust litigation against MSFT at the time too. But that's not enough for Balmer to feel the need to placate Jobs directly. He would have just said "Suck It Jobs, you missed out." And maybe made some moves (like ship Halo on the Mac) to appease the DOJ and some consumers.
There is something fishy about what Ed Fries is saying and forgive me if I don't buy it.
@DANNER : Because if you remember that it was two crazy kids that brought about the entire computer industry. Even though they have battled with their OSes, they still have some respect for one another. Jobs and Gates are more like brothers than in most families. They fight, hate and work together. You can see many of these examples over the years when both camps tend to scratch their heads to figure out why X company didn't go off and screw Y company since they had them over a barrel. Remember, they are in a extremely special position. Just Jobs and Gates as being essentially the creators of the entire PC business and its millions of offshoots. The fanboys and the media like to play up the whole enemies thing, and to a point it would be true, but they definitely respect each other. Ballmer was being smart to keep things under control after pulling a big smack in the face.
No surprise that Jobs was pissed, after promoting Halo at Macworld 1999!
Here is actual video of the event:
@Technophile: Yeah, it was just a happy, brotherly industry, right? MSFT never scr3wed competitors, especially those with similar roots... They didn't commonly rip off competitors... "F.U.D." and general foul play wasn't in the MS toolbox... DOS (and so much more that we now associate with Microsoft) was after all a Gates Invention...
There are a whole line of developers who got into bed with MSFT and ended up scr3wed, and definitely in that period (and before & after). What in the world leads you to believe the tripe that you wrote?
If Jobs was so clairvoyent then he should've made Bungie an offer.
just to think somthing so goood could get bought
by microsoft....I won't stand for this
Pissed off at a company that decided to aquire a good-looking upcoming developer? That's just them being a smart business. He should have directed his ire at whoever made the decision to sell, after presumably working in good faith with Apple to develop the game, or with whoever at Apple failed to lock Bungie into a contract to build the game for Apple.
Rest In Peace Steve Jobs, you will be missed.
