Halo 3 Music On iTunes
Bungie has made available the music used in the E3 Halo 3 trailer (the slow dramatic version of the Halo theme) for purchase at the iTunes music store. The strange thing: While you can buy the song for 99 cents from Apple, you can’t buy it at Microsoft’s Zune store, or at any MS-powered store, even though Microsoft has owned Bungie and the entire Halo property for years. Isn’t that the opposite of what would make sense? Wouldn’t everyone understand (be pissed off, but understand) if the song was a Zune exclusive?
The smart thing to do would have been to release a short version, completely for free, as a thank you to the fans. If Microsoft doesn’t want to give away a full track it can sell later, I completely understand, but a DRM-free short version (45-60 seconds) could be useful in mashups and cell phone ringtones. Shoulda done it.
(via Joystiq)
UPDATE: Added clarification that what makes this ridiculous is that Microsoft owns Bungie and Halo, but doesn’t have the song in its music store. Thanks, Andrew!
The thing that wasnt mentioned (might be assumed though) but I thought it made it even funnier - Bungie is 100% owned by Microsoft! Oy.
Comment by Andrew Calvo | December 20, 2006
Good point! A lot of people wouldn’t know that Microsoft owns Halo and the company that makes it, which means they should be able to put their own music in their own music store. You’d think that would be easy, and that the Zune would get it first.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | December 20, 2006
I totally agree. They should really put the Halo 3 songs on the Zune. It is a stupid idea that they don’t. We should fight this!
Comment by HaloKing343 | April 10, 2007
I cant believe u lot pay
Comment by suckers | September 19, 2007
They do not own Bungie anymore!
Bungie is a indy Co now
Comment by Stealth CLG | October 16, 2007
One more comment….anyone can download this for free at the Bungie.net website under news archive and then go to 2nd page. You can then download it as an mp3, not an mp4(apple). Furthermore….you cannot find it in itunes either. Did a search under every possible name and nothing comes up.
Comment by Omega Stinger | November 2, 2007
Yeah a little comment, it would be better business for bungie or microsoft to sell the rights to apple or itunes because Ipods own about 90% of the music devices sold in the world. It would be much better business to sell it to apple and have them sell it in Itunes which sells much much more music than microsoft and have microsoft or the owner of the song being paid by apple for every song they sell.
Comment by Felix | January 5, 2008