Bungie had no option but to sign with Activision, the publisher's CEO has suggested.

"When they started the process of looking for a new partner they had a vision for a kind of product they wanted to create that needed certain skills and capabilities," Bobby Kotick told an audience at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference in California.

"As they started looking at the obvious candidates they realised that no company other than Activision had the skills they needed to be successful for their vision for that product.

"These are things that you would never have envisioned five years ago," continued Kotick. "Blizzard has 2500 people in customer services just for World of Warcraft. How you train them, how you manage them, how you organise them, how you use CRM tools to be really effective in satisfying the expectations of your audience is something that no other company had.

"When Bungie started to think about their future product plan and realised how deficient they and everyone else was in providing all the services necessary to create great competitive products for the future, they didn't really have any other alternative."

Could all this talk of huge customer service requirements mean that Bungie has an MMO in its sights?

Just imagine what could happen if EA got the leading talent from all those studios together to make a one-off FPS marvel.

Probably a good idea to stick to what you know for a first project in new places rather than taking any risks.

Yeah but from interviews it sounds like there new game is going to be a long lasting franchise. So starting a 10 year plan around a FPS sounds strange.

Battle Royale

PENALTY: Blatant lies. Five minutes in the Sin Bin.

On balance Bungie's only truly AAA game was Halo Combat Evolved and they have been milking it ever since imo.

Oh Bungie, you big tease. When will you tell us what you are working on over at Activision, and when will you say whether or not it’s an MMO?

Speaking during GDC Online 2010 in Texas today, Bungie creative director Joe Staten hinted around about Bungie’s next project and teased what it could be with an answer to a question posed.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could make a world that was always there for you?”, replied Staten. “Wow. That would be great.”

The comment just adds more fuel to the Bungie MMO fire that’s been slowly smoldering for quite a while.

Last we heard, Bungie’s Brian Jarrard refused to confirm or deny to us if the new IP the studio is working on is, in fact, an MMO or not. However, Activision’s Thomas Tippl said during the announcement of the Bungie deal online was “expected” to be a big part of Bungie’s new game. That could mean online multiplayer though, not necessarily an MMO.

So, we should just take Bungie’s latest tease as just that for the time being. Hopefully, something concrete will be announced soon.

You have attained permanent LEGENDARY EXEMPTION STATUS

I will pay every active forumite £10 if the Playstation 4 is released in 2014.

You have attained permanent LEGENDARY EXEMPTION STATUS

I will pay every active forumite £10 if the Playstation 4 is released in 2014.