Ex-Ensemble man and head of newly formed Windstorm Entertainment, Dusty Monk, has spoken out about the killed-off Halo MMO, which he worked on for three years and had a development budget of some 90 million dollars.

Speaking with IncGamers, Monk explains how the MMO was essentially shut-down due to a refocus of internal development for the Xbox 360, in part as a response to the success of the Wii and a desire to tap the mainstream market.

"They were looking really hard at the Nintendo Wii and they were really excited by the numbers that the Wii was turning," he told the site. "This was about the time that Microsoft decided that its Xbox platform and XBLA really needed to go more in the direction of appealing to a more casual, broader audience."

Talking about the canceled project, Monk decisively asserts the game's potential to not only tap the WoW market, but to also compete with it.

"Even though a lot of people talk about how you just can't build a WoW killer, I absolutely believe that we could have built an MMO," he said. "If Microsoft had maintained their commitment, that if it hadn't been a WoW killer it certainly would've competed."

Given Microsoft's continued commitment to the Halo series, and a price tag of some 90 million smackeroos, I'm reticent to think this was all solely because of the Wii, especially with three years of development time behind them. A Halo game would certainly carry the kind of weight needed to get up on WoW's face, whether it could have stayed there or even taken over though, is another story entirely. Hit the link above for the full interview.