: Who cares? Well, Microsoft probably does. They've sunk a lot of money into
: 343 Industries and Halo already. More players might not make something
: better, but it does keep it alive. And I think a bigger budget can be a
: great thing if used properly.

Well obviously, Microsoft cares, as a giant Godzilla of corporate business. I was attempting to refer to the audience's point of view. :)

I worry about businesses looking at an artistic piece of entertainment the same way as the buckets and mops they're trying to sell two isles over. You can't use the same business tactics. Like say, instead of trying to find the cheapest raw ingredients to make the biggest profit, you have to instead support craftsmen and engineers, granting them freedom and experimentation so as to cultivate the creativity needed to possibly generate something of worth.

A big budget can be great, but it can also squeeze the heart out of things through expectational (made-up word) pressure. I think instead they can scale their budget to their fans, use less money on marketing, splashy cinematics, etc and make a great (or even better) game, uphold the legacy titles, and still make a profit. It's about scaling things back to maintain that creativity mentioned above.

: It can go two ways, I think. Either 343 realizes that their game isn't as
: popular as some of the other games and start to copy more elements from
: those game in an attempt to appeal to a broader audience. Or, they'll
: revert Halo back to what it was six years ago in order to appeal to the
: people who are feeling nostalgic about the good ol' days of Halo 3.

Indeed. Or it can keep on the path its on, which might be somewhere between the two?