343 Industries
Bungie was a video game developer working on their next project when Microsoft bought them in 2000. Halo: Combat Evolved, the game they were working on, turned into a launch title for Microsoft's Xbox console. Bungie and Microsoft never fit together very well. After the release of Halo 2, Bungie started trying to get better profit sharing for their next game, Halo 3. These discussions led to Bungie becoming independent from Microsoft in 2007. While Bungie was still had a contract to make new Halo games, Microsoft owned the franchise. Xbox general manager Bonnie Ross said that her coworkers thought Halo was a dying franchise and looked at contracting an outside company to make new games. Ross really liked the series, and she wanted a different approach. Ross' pitch convinced Microsoft Game Studios general manager Shane Kim, and she was put in charge of a new internal Halo studio, 343 Industries. The studio was named after the Halo character 343 Guilty Spark.