: I agree with you about fan perception, but it doesn't need the other stuff;
: counter-examples include 8-bit games in general, old PC games in general,
: the original Doom games, the older Quake games (or maybe all of them now),
: the whole Half-Life series now, heck, old versions of Counter-Strike have
: a bigger, more interested, more invested fanbase than a lot of big, recent
: games and game series.

You hit it on the head right here. It's really not about how often the top-tier title comes out, it's about the title you do release having legs and especially in multiplayer. The reality is that if H4 had been an instant classic in terms of multiplayer and had great DLC which was bought up by everyone, there would still be a lot of people playing and discussing it.

The most I would EVER want to see is a major release every 2 years, I think for as much as COD sells there is serious brand fatigue and Activision is clearly not in it for the long-haul. They'll ride that donkey until it stops printing money, just like Guitar Hero, and then they'll move on to something else. With a franchise like Halo, MS can't be that way they have to maintain the brand image for the long-haul.