343 Industries

343 Industries, usually shortened to 343i, is an American video game developer located in Kirkland, Washington. It was established in 2007 by Microsoft Game Studios to oversee development of the Halo science fiction media franchise, which includes video games, novels, comics, and other multimedia content. Its name derives from 343 Guilty Spark, a character within the Halo universe.

History

In 2007, Bungie, the original developers of the Halo franchise, separated from Microsoft and became an independent studio.^[2] However, Microsoft withheld the Halo intellectual property rights and created 343i to oversee the future development of the franchise.^[3]

Bungie

After the highly successful release of Halo 3 in 2007, Bungie was able to break from Microsoft and become independent. The Halo intellectual property rights remained with Microsoft as well as a minority equity interest in Bungie. Even after the separation Bungie agreed to an additional development of two more Halo games, Halo 3: ODST in 2009 and Halo: Reach in 2010.^[4][5][6][7]

Assembly

On April 29, 2010, Bungie announced that Halo: Reach would be their last Halo game, and that all future projects would be developed by 343i.^[8] During this transition, some Bungie staff members transferred to 343i, including Franchise Director Ian Lemoigne. Their first project was Halo Waypoint, a downloadable application for the Xbox 360 and later the Windows Phone 7 where players can track their accomplishments through the Halo series of games. 343i has also developed Halo: Reach's second map pack entitled "Defiant" in conjunction with Certain Affinity. Additionally, the studio was involved in the development of Halo Legends, a collection of animated short films based on the Halo lore. When Pandemic Studios was liquidated, a large number of staff moved to 343i.^[9]

Current projects

The company was responsible for the HD remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, titled Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, which was released the 15th of November, 2011, to celebrate the 10th year since the first franchise installment on the 15th of November, 2001. The remake includes additional story elements as well as heavily updated graphics. The title was a joint effort by 343i, Certain Affinity, and Saber Interactive. They are currently developing their first official new Halo instalment, Halo 4, which is confirmed to be the first title of a new Halo trilogy.

Halo Waypoint

343i’s first project was Halo Waypoint, a downloadable application for the Xbox 360 and later the Windows Phone 7. This service is used as a place where players can track their accomplishments through the Halo series of games. This has added many tabletop role-playing game elements to online play as well as stat tracking, allowing players to view and share their progress in greater detail. The service is cloud based, meaning the information contained within the database is kept on many servers in large networks within the internet. This allows the information stored within to be accessed at anytime, anywhere, and protects the data from common forms of data loss such as mechanical hard drive malfunction. Halo Waypoint is also serves as a social hub for fans of the franchise, as well as an independent media distribution service.^[10]

Non-Software Projects

Aside from video games, 343i is involved in the production of numerous Halo novels and various other Halo related media projects.

Microsoft, in a contract with the Mega Bloks toy company, is in conjunction with 343i to manufacture a new line of toys and other memorabilia for the upcoming Halo trilogy. In a statement from the chief innovation officer of Mega Bloks, “Halo Authentic Collectors Series is one of the toy Industries leading properties.”.^[11]

Games

References

External links

• Career website
• Official website