While unlikely, it is possible, by the time Halo 5 development ramps down they'll be north of 350 devs in all likely-hood.

If at that point 343i desires and manages to churn out a concept and tech-demo that they would really like to do and sell MS on it, they may be given the liberty to assign some resources to it along with Halo 6 development.

Like Kain said, it's also quite possible if not likely that they'll be asked to do some additional development for other Microsoft Studios with less resources.

why not mention milked exclusives like mario,  gran turismo and god of war 

Seriously? Gran Tourismo? Seriously dude?

I am not going to talk about GoW anymore Santa Monica Studios are in my opinion spineless suckers who don´t have the balls to change anything in GoW, instead they just keep going with the same old setting Hero and style.

And I guess we don´t even need to talk about Mario. Everybody knows he is Nintendo, and that´s the way to survive for them. If they stop milking the janitor they will die instantly.

I think they will create a new IP, but not in the next few years. There has to be a lot of manpower if they were developing a game like Halo 4 and doing the Halo annyversary edition at the same time.
And which so much talent it would be a waste if they wouldn't try to enlarge their crew and create something new sometimes.

They already have ~300 people... And they work with Certain Affinity (Anniversary, Halo 4 forge mode, multiplayer maps etc) as well.

They are by MS's biggest game dev already and considering that they also have a who's who of Game devs and movie special effects people they are also likely payed way above average. For comparison Lionhead is ~200, and over at Sony Guerrilla Games is 160+.

And they will likely have to staff up for Next gen development if they want the next game out within the first couple years of the next xbox launch anyway. But that is not to say they won't make other games than the mainline Halo games, they will all be in the Halo universe tho.

To quote "343 Industries is forging the future of Halo, expanding and building upon one of the most important and successful franchises in gaming history."

Yea they are the Halo studio, they are not doing other IP as long as Halo is an industry Juggernaut. You got to remember that 343i is everything Halo they control everything to do with the IP as well from comics and books to toys and movies. And they were created for the sole purpose of making Halo the biggest entertainment IP in the world. MS want Halo to be the new Star Wars if not bigger 343i is not going to have any spare man power to do non Halo stuff MGS have plenty of other teams for that.

The discussions ends right here, you are obviously a fanboy who does not accept any argument except of his own.

I'm asking you the question.

I happen to love Nintendo games and buy and enjoy all the main Mario, Zelda and Metroid games. If that makes me a fanboy then there so to are most gamers because Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Halo, Gran Turismo etc. all sell a lot with every release.

THEY SHOULD MAKE A PERFECT DARK GAME!!!


Still, they probably won't do anything besides Halo. Their name is 343 Industries, after all. (Named after the Halo character, 343 Guilty Spark.)

I think the reason people complain about milking through yearly releases is because the resources spent on every release could be spent developing a new IP, which could bring innovation to the industry. Rather than having 343 pump out Halo games every year, which in many aspects are very similar to the previous entries, they could be making something new.

That said there are franchises that I buy games from continuously which are considered "milked". For example Pokemon you could say is milked to death by Nintendo, but being a hardcore fan of the franchise I pretty much always buy the games whenever they are released (including some spinoffs). Same with COD; I love the franchise and buy the games yearly, but eventually there will come a point where if they were to start releasing COD every 3 months for example, and even if these games were all of equally good quality, I would get fed up of playing them. Its the same with eating a really great flavoured ice cream. You may eat it every day for a month, but after that point you'll probably stop eating because it oversaturates your taste. For me a yearly release on the above franchises is just right since it allows me to enjoy each entry and want more by year end (excluding most dlc for COD because I don't want dlc), but for others a yearly release probably is oversaturating for their taste. Its just difference in circumstances and opinion.

The funny thing is yearly installments of game franchises was commonplace back in the 8 and 16 bit eras, but nobody ever complained about developers being lazy or milking franchises back then.  We had a new Mega Man game come out every year except one from 1987-1997 for example.  How come we never heard gamers complain about that???