Bungie going â??beyond the box in the living roomâ??

Bungie, the Washington-based studio behind the seminal FPS Halo, says it’s eager and ready to break from the shackles of platform exclusivity.

And the studio said its unprecedented ten year publishing deal with Activision was going to expand its reach beyond the Xbox 360, beyond the PS3, and even beyond consoles.

“It boils down the fact we see ourselves as storytellers,” said Bungie community director Brian Jarrard in a wide-ranging interview with Develop.

“We had a very mutually beneficial relationship with the [Xbox 360’s] Live platform and that was a great run. We’d like to think that those kind of relationships will persist but really it’s about being able to reach more people – and not locking them into a single choice or platform.”

Jarrard added: “As people who work in creative mediums we want to share that with the largest possible audience.

“There are still tons of people that have never experienced the world of Halo because they didn’t want to buy an Xbox. So it’s great for us to not have to worry about that and know we can touch more people and bring the experience to them – rather than making them come to us.

But the studio wasn’t merely fixating its attention to the PlayStation market alone.

Bungie suggested, in fact, that it was preparing for the onslaught of mobile internet-connected devices that are building markets.

“For us looking forwards it’s very exciting to think we can engage more fans than ever across as many devices as possible, and connect and extend that experience for them, beyond the box in the living room. That was a key part of finding a partner like Activision,” Jarrard added.

The full interview can be found here.