So I have a question for you guys. Does MS deserve more credit for Halo being what it is than they've perhaps ever gotten over the years?

I mean, yes, Bungie had been working on the game before MS bought them sure. However, it was a massively different game then compared to product they eventually shipped for Xbox. Whether or not those decisions were directly influenced by MS we can't really say, but let's fast forward to the here and now. Bungie leaves, MS creates a brand new studio for Halo (with a few familiar faces, but not that many in the scope of things). That studio, 343, creates what I think many, including myself, consider to be the best Halo campaign/story since the original. Fair enough the MP wasn't the greatest in the series, but that's in part because they were evolving it from Reach, a game with which Bungie had already taken the franchise's MP to a low point. They also knocked Halo 4 out in just 2 years time compared to the 3 Bungie had usually taken. Meanwhile, Bungie goes on to create Destiny in partnership with Activision. And Destiny is.....just mindbogglingly mediocre. I don't even feel like getting into all the ways in which it falls flat on its face because after discussing the matter with dozens of friends over a month of time since release, I frankly have just grown tired of beating the dead horse.

So I look at it and I ask again...does MS deserve more credit for how Halo turned out? If they had never bought Bungie, would the result have been similar to Destiny. A game oozing with potential, but never capitalising on it?

Cus honestly man. I look at Destiny and all I can think to myself is......how is this from Bungie? Who are these guys? Am I really just supposed to chalk up all of Destiny's flaws to Activision being evil? 

Hmmm.. so you are basically dismissing the great studio that actually built this franchise.... kinda hard to take what you are saying seriously.

Bungie deserves a lot more than how you are versing this thread of yours.

Honestly, no. MS gave them ideas to make more money. So they told to do this this and this, don't do this. But the execution and art behind the games, is the makers. It be like saying the president of a movie company created that epic fight scene. They give suggestions to where they want the movie to go. Not the connect the dots portion.

Suggestions?  MS can easily tell them which direction to follow and which to not.

This guy has a point.  He is saying that Destiny is the product of a Bungie-only inspired game.  Halo is the product of a Bungie and MS inspired game.

He is not sure if Destiny is mediocre because it was just Bungie, or if Activision swayed them in the wrong direction. 

I agree.
That it remained great after Bungee departed suggests in my view that MS had more of a hand in its quality than is generally acknowledged.

And Destiny, by MS-unsupervised Bungee, is pretty crap.

Yes. The corporation can tell them what and were to go. But the HOW is the part the consumer likes. VS the initial idea. But yes. The head company can mess things up. Or improve it, Like MS directions did. MS was even smart to let Red VS Blue continue and work as their advetising campaign. That sure helps the franchise in alot of ways. Bungie is obiously ruined by corporate DLC greed. The pre beta test people runs, and early trailers expose things missing. All the problems with the story were definallty done post story completion.

Destiny is very simliar to what happend with Superman II. They had a script, filmed most of it. The director walked. They got a new person in. And changed the story, while 60% was already filmed. Holes and weird issues happend. Clark trips into fire? He's playing dumb. Not actually dumb. The changes couldn't of been made by bungie. Or the they would of been done during the scripting stage. The entire story has been completed. It was worked on 4 years or something? All 4 game installments, were the character goes etc. is done. They had all the clifhanger points ready. But then Acti was like: We want more DLC so can you do this. Instead of $60 game. They get $120 or more with DLC. And they had to adapt sections of the story into it. And causing all these barren places. Because things where suppose to happen here. But then they're stuck into the DLC. The Grimore is massivly detailed. That doesn't just vanish from a game, for no reason.

I think so, yes. Bungie/MS was an awesome partnership, even if I felt like every Halo after 3 was worse. (Haven't played 4, though).

You smoked too much cloud!

Both Halo Reach and Halo 3 have been offered up free as part of Microsoft's Games with Gold program.
Reach consistently destroys Halo 3 when it comes to the number of players logged into Live and playing pvp.
So, it would seem your assertion that Reach was the low point in Bungie's series is completely backwards.
Flat out wrong
Utterly opinionated and without merit or even a shred of statistical evidence.
You know, 'cause if Reach was the low point, then why are there upwards of 8 times the number of people playing that game over the previous one?
Doesn't that sorta state the opposite?

What Yuri said. ^^

They did force Bungie to ship Halo 2 before it had an ending though.