Steve Jobs ‘raged at Microsoft’ over Halo-maker Bungie acquisition

“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 game,” Rob Crossley reports for Develop.

“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,” Crossley reports.

MacDailyNews Take: It wasn’t an “unknown quantity” to Jobs or to anyone else who was at Macworld Expo ’99 where the first Halo movie debuted. We know, we were there. It’s no wonder Jobs was pissed, we certainly were.

Crossley continues, “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.'”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]