Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000, and its project Halo: Combat Evolved was repurposed as a launch title for Microsoft's Xbox console. Halo became the Xbox's "killer app", selling millions of copies and spawning the Halo franchise. On October 5, 2007, Bungie announced that it had split from Microsoft and become a privately held independent company, Bungie LLC, while Microsoft retained ownership of the Halo franchise intellectual property. It signed a ten-year publishing deal with Activision in April 2010. Their first project was the 2014 first-person shooter, Destiny, which was followed by Destiny 2 in 2017. In January 2019, Bungie announced it was ending this partnership, and would take over publishing for Destiny. In January 2022, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced their intent to acquire Bungie as part of their family of studios, though Bungie would remain an independent and multi-platform studio and publisher.