According to someone who works in Bungie, as of yesterday, Bungie is no longer working for or with Microsoft. Their proof of this lies within Bungie's global address book. If you ask any employee of Bungie to find any Microsoft contacts in that address book, you will find nothing. If this is true, Microsoft will post the press release on October 6th, to avoid affecting quarterly results. Microsoft is also rumored to keep the entire Halo franchise. The same Bungie employee has this to say regarding why Microsoft and Halo may have split:
Apparently MS just wants Bungie to make Halo for the rest of their natural days, and Bungie doesn't like how MS is constantly trying to "handle" everything they do; the way they market their games, the way they interact with their fans (basically the fact that they do appreciate their fans), and how stingie they are with the profits (comparable to the rest of the industry). So as of today they are their own independent entity. They'll probably make Halo 4 for Microsoft, however hey are also free to create new intellectual properties for whatever system they want. (Even though they prefer the xbox platform)
Neither company has confirmed or denied any of this. We will have to wait until October 6th to see anything official.
