Reportedly intrigued by the possibility of shaping how Microsoft develops their new Xbox console system, Bungie is sold Microsoft and becomes part of Microsoft Game Studios.

Rumors spread that Bungie's principled stand on making a recall of Myth 2 due to the uninstaller bug hurt the company financially enough to bring the eventual release of Halo into question without further funding. Bungie at this time had already sold 19.9% of the company to Take Two Interactive, the infamous publishers of the Grand Theft Auto series. As compensation for their shares in Bungie, Take Two receives the rights to the Oni and Myth franchises. Oni languishes indefinitely, while Myth 3 is farmed out to Mumbo Jumbo, a studio that is closed almost as soon as their game is released, a game which almost uniformly failed to live up to the high standards of the franchise's fans.

Other rumors spread that a possible acquisition of Bungie by Apple Computer was discussed, although it is not exactly when. Peter Tamte is supposed to have had discussions with Apple prior to the acquisition, but the substance of those discussions is unknown. Given Apple's attempts in 1999 to place greater emphasis on Mac gaming, in conjunction with the push to migrate to the OpenGL standard from QuickDraw 3d, this would seem like a logical move. Perhaps due to their bad experience with the ill-fated Pippin console, or for other reasons, an Apple deal never materializes.

The status of releases of Halo on other platforms is thrown into question until after the release of the game on the Xbox platform. Eventually, Gearbox ports it to the PC and Westlake Interactive ports their PC port to the Macintosh. Friction develops between Gearbox and those at Microsoft working on the port over editing features, with the result that eventually Gearbox independently releases and supports Halo Custom Edition, designed to play user-created content made with the Halo Editing Kit.