343 Industries

343 Industries, commonly shortened to 343i or 343, is a subsidiary of Microsoft Studios located in Kirkland, Washington. It is tasked with overseeing the Halo franchise and creating new properties for the series. The team's name is a reference to 343 Guilty Spark, the monitor of Installation 04.

Overview
After Bungie separated from Microsoft to become an independent studio in 2007, the intellectual property rights to the Halo franchise remained with Microsoft. In 2010, Bungie announced that Halo: Reach would be their last Halo game and that all future games in the series would be developed by 343 Industries. Since its establishment in 2007, a couple Bungie employees have transferred to 343, namely Frank O'Connor and Chad Armstrong (still keeping the number of ex-Bungie Employees under five). In addition, 343 Industries has hired several of its employees from the Halo community, including Jeremy Patenaude and Jacob Benton of Ascendant Justice and Jessica Shea of Hawty McBloggy.

343's first project was Halo Waypoint, a downloadable Xbox LIVE application developed in conjunction with Certain Affinity and released in 2009. Its content is also available on the official Halo website at Xbox.com. Certain Affinity also created the maps in the Defiant Map Pack, the first map pack to be released by 343. Their current major projects include Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, developed in conjunction with Saber Interactive, and Halo 4, the first game in a new trilogy. In 2010, 343 released the first episode of their official podcast, entitled 343 Sparkast. After Bungie announced they would discontinue Halo-related Bungie Weekly Updates in July 7, 2011, 343 Industries started publishing the Halo Bulletin, a weekly writeup of Halo news.

Upcoming and ongoing

 * Halo Waypoint - An in-house production for Xbox LIVE.
 * The Forerunner Saga - A series of novels written by Greg Bear.
 * Halo: Cryptum
 * Halo: Primordium
 * Halo: Fall of Reach - A comic book adaptation of the novel of the same name, written by Brian Reed with art by Felix Ruiz.
 * Untitled Halo novel series - A post-war novel series written by Karen Traviss.
 * Halo: Glasslands
 * Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary - Upcoming remake of Halo: Combat Evolved.
 * Reclaimer Trilogy - An upcoming trilogy of Halo games.
 * Halo 4 - The first game in the trilogy and a sequel to Halo 3.

Released

 * Halo Wars - A RTS game made in conjunction with Robot Entertainment.
 * Halo: Helljumper - A comic book series written by Peter David and drawn by Eric Nguyen.
 * Halo Encyclopedia - Edited by Tobias Buckell and published by DK Books.
 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - A collection of short stories written by Eric Nylund, Tobias Buckell, Karen Traviss, and other critically acclaimed authors.
 * Halo: Blood Line - A comic book series written by Fred Van Lente and drawn by Francis Portela.
 * Halo Legends - A collection of anime shorts created in partnership with numerous Japanese studios.

Known employees

 * Frank O'Connor - Franchise Development Director, formerly an employee of Bungie
 * Kevin Grace - Managing Editor
 * Bonnie Ross – General Manager
 * Jonathan Goff - Community Manager
 * Dan Ayoub - Executive Producer
 * Jeremy Patenaude – Content Creator (Formerly of AscendantJustice.com)
 * Jacob Benton – Content Creator (Formerly of AscendantJustice.com)
 * Corrinne Yu - Principle Engine Programmer
 * Chad Armstrong - Designer, formerly an employee of Bungie
 * Gabriel Garza - Artist
 * Nicolas Bouvier - Artist
 * Jessica Shea - Community Manager (Formerly of Hawty McBloggy)
 * David Ellis (formerly of 1up.com) - Content Producer
 * Jason Pace - Creative Director for Halo Waypoint
 * Sotaro Tojima - Audio Director
 * Armando Troisi - Narrative Designer
 * Vic DeLeon - Lead Mission Artist, formerly of Bungie
 * Kenneth Scott - Senior Art Director
 * Josh Holmes – Creative Director
 * Daniel Price - Senior Service Engineer
 * Che Chou - Studio Producer
 * David Wu - Chief Technology Officer
 * Sally Huang - Producer
 * Chris Buckley - Graphic Designer

Former

 * Justin Korthof - Community Manager, now working at Robot Entertainment.
 * Ryan Payton - Creative Lead; Narrative Designer for Halo 4, left in Summer 2011, now the founder of Camouflaj.