The Escapist has a nice piece on how Microsoft has gone from being a puppy to a big dog in the computer and console game space, and how often that has been achieved through acquisitions. To do so, they spoke with Bruce Shelley of Ensemble Studios, best-known for their Age of Empires series of RTS games on the PC, but now working on the Halo Wars RTS for the Xbox 360; and Jordan Weisman of FASA Interactive, makers of the MechWarrior franchise, and often used as an object lesson for how to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Of most interest to Halo and Bungie fans is the advice Weisman gave Microsoft on the Bungie acquisition:

When we were involved in the Bungie acquisition. ... It was kind of eye-opening. We spent a bunch of time talking about how, if indeed we were going to go through with this acquisition, the best case was to leave them in Chicago. If that fails, we have to create an isolated situation: They're not a part of Microsoft HR; they're not in the way of that part of the org chart; they're in a totally separate, isolated room. There's that locked box that you leave them in. Because otherwise the same thing will happen to their team that happened to mine.

With the Halo franchise almost standing alone as the system-seller for the Xbox, and Halo 3 poised to do the same for the 360 next year, it seems like the same thing didn't happen to Bungie that happened to FASA.