"Under the terms of the agreement, Activision will have exclusive, worldwide rights to publish and distribute all future Bungie games based on the new intellectual property on multiple platforms and devices."

The press release points out that Bungie "remains an independent company and will continue to make their own intellectual property".

Bungie boss Harold Ryan said the studio picked Activision for its "global reach, multi-platform experience and marketing expertise". This suggests that the Halo maker is finally going to develop for formats other than Xbox 360.

The studio elaborated on the announcement via its website.

Jesus H. Christ. Was Mircrosoft THAT bad?  
 
 
Edit: It'll make Bungie tons of cash, but if they though their last product might have been over-saturated, oh boy, just wait for it now.

Possibly, but I think this is just a back up plan for Activision in case things go south with Infinity Ward.
 
I remain personally skeptical however that Bungie can produce anything other than Halo to the quality they're happy with when releasing a Halo game, but I would like to be proven wrong.

Moved to the Bungie forum.

Already a topic on this here, please continue to discuss this news in that topic thanks! :)