343 will have to squeeze every penny out of the Halo until thy get sick of it and leave, or get shut down.

343 is to Microsoft what Treyarch is to Activision.

All they will ever do is make Halo games because Microsoft has essentially turned Halo into a yearly release like Call of Duty.

More than likely 343i efforts and advancements and resources will be given to Microsoft's other 1st party developers to help them just like how Sony spread the wealth between their 1st party developers.

I wouldn't be surprised if 343i created a secondary studio or flat out bought a studio like Saber Interactive or
Certain Affinity and used them for experimental stuff.

I think MS Vancouver and MS Victoria are for new IPs next gen. Well Rare and Lionhead might push something new as well. Maybe in 4-5 years they will make something new.

Right, because we've had a Halo game every single year this gen.  *facepalm*

We had Halo 3 in '07, Reach in '10, and 4 in '12.  Halo Wars was spinoff done by a separate developer, ODST was essentially a Halo 3 expansion pack / beta key for Reach, and last year was an HD remake of the first game.  That's hardly milking the franchise the way Activision has done with COD every single year since 2005.

Seriously? I mean I like Halo but this was milked like no other exclusive title. Halo 3, Reach, ODST, Wars, Combal Evolved Aniversary and Halo 4. Those are 6 Halo titles in the last 5 years, they bring more then 1 game per year. If you like it or not this is milking 101.

God I wish Halo was a yearly franchise. I'll never understand why people complain about COD. If you don't like the franchise why would you care if they come out every year. I don't care about Madden or other sports games getting released every year with little more than roster updates. It seems to me that the only people that have a right to complain about year releases would be fans of the franchise in question and only if they quality suffers for it. But COD is always of above average quality and gives it's fans what they want. So if the fans aren't complaining then who is? The haters, that's who.

If Halo was a yearly franchise while maintaing it's extremely high quality I'd buy every release and thank 343i for doing it.

What's wrong with it? 2 main games and 3 spin offs isn't really that much. But really, what's wrong with produce high quality games that the fans want?

If Halo was a released twice a year with the same level of quality I'd buy each one. If it was monthly I'd subscribe. I enjoy the games that much.

Fans what two things. More of what they want and they want it as soon as possible. 343i was designed to do that. You can call it milking, but I consider it good business and fan service.

I am not saying I am against it. But it is milking. It is no copy and paste milking like AC or COD it is quality milking. I am going to buy Halo 4 for myself in a few minutes. But no matter how you turn it it is milking.

So what wouldn't be "milking" yet still satisfy fans and turn a healthy profit? Should MS put a small team with a small budget to the task of creating one Halo game per generation? Should Nintendo stop making Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games? Should no games ever get sequels so all games are new IPs? What about the games so good we want more?

Fans are always asking for more so why critisize MS for giving the fans what they want while maintaing such a high level of quality?

I think of milking as a bad thing and the amount of Halo and it's quality isn't bad. I save the term "milking" for franchises stretched too far and thin with little effort put in. More effort and love is put into each Halo release than a lot of franchises. Milking means exploitation and while MS is certainly capitalising on the popularity of Halo I don't think MS is exploiting the fans. We want what 343iis selling.