After being completely caught off guard about the whole Infinity Ward/Activision situation, and soaking up as much info as I could about it, I decided that I believe that the founders of Infinity Ward, Vince Zampella and Jason West, will join Microsoft Game Studios to create some as-yet-unannounced IP. It makes perfect sense especially when you consider how tight Microsoft and Infinity Ward were in the months leading up to the release of Modern Warfare 2. I can remember people saying that there were times when you would have thought that Microsoft owned Infinity Ward, instead of Activision.

Also when you consider the rumors going around that Zampella and West were showing off a new IP to another publisher, if true then I believe this lends even more credence to the idea of a possible partnership with Microsoft. When you look at the big third party publishers out there, Activision, EA, and Ubi Soft, we can pretty much eliminate two of them immediately, Activision because that's who just fired them and EA because that's who they originally worked for. And I don't think that they are gonna go to Ubi Soft because they already have their own unique stable of shooters.

Microsoft, on the other hand, seems the perfect candidate because a) Console manufacturers tend to have a better understanding of the industry and what fans want than third parties that are just trying to games only b) Microsoft had to learn the hard way by letting Bungie go, and would be less likely to repeat those mistakes, and c) judging by the job they are doing with Halo thus far, Microsoft has a good understanding of how to expand a franchise without stripping it of it's core value.

Whatever the case turns out to be I think that we as gamers will benefit most from this in the end. Zampella and West will form a new studio that will most likely make amazing games, while the rest of the team at Infinity Ward will go on making amazing CoD/MW games. It's a win/win situation.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about then you should probably click here.