: I know that 343 really wanted to update the Halo 3 playlist last month when
: it was free, but they couldn't because they didn't have complete access to
: make updates. It makes me think there might be other areas where they
: don't have the same level of control over Bungie's titles that Bungie did.

Huh, I interpreted the Halo 3 playlist thing very differently. I threw the suggestion at them on Twitter and they replied "we'll look into that". Then later, they said somewhere they weren't going to do it, citing they didn't have the resources to do so, which I took to mean they didn't feel they had the time/manpower to allocate to it, not that they didn't have the ability.

They can add pop-up notifications to Halo 3, ODST, and Reach, as well as tweak Reach's multiplayer and take the whole multiplayer suite and throw it in Anniversary... I feel like they have all the keys. But neither of us work for 343i, so it's all conjecture.