I thought Microsoft bought the Halo license.

They did.  I'm pretty sure the next Halo won't be made by Bungie.

I don't see Bungie developing for the Wii or PS3 in the near future. Why would they? They have a massive fanbase on the 360, and with their new independent status that doesn't have the financial might of MS, that's an important consideration. It's not as if the Xbox brand has been bad to them and they're yearning to do something for Sony or Nintendo either. In the decade they've been with MS, they've gone from a small to medium indie dev to now a large indie developer with, by the end of this year, 20 million + games sold.

I'm excited to see where Bungie will go, I'm definitely hoping for a new IP in a new genre. MS should be doing everything they can to keep them happy too, the Xbox brand could really use more franchises seen as exclusive to them.

Overall, I see nothing changing except for more creativity in their games, and probably a number of games on the DS (why wouldn't they? Cheap to make, probably good sales and with MS partially owning the company, it would certainly benefit them to have more money coming in).

Well there is a chance it won't. But if so, Microsoft can always ask Bioware to make a Halo RPG or some other games for the franchise. I for one is cool with the decision.

Umm Microsoft didn't pay Nintendo $3 billion for Rare.  Microsoft paid $375 million for Rare, they even had a press release for it on their website at the time:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/Sep02/09-24ProjectRPR.mspx

"REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 24, 2002 — Microsoft Corp. today announced it has purchased U.K.-based Rare Ltd., one of the world's leading video game developers, further demonstrating Microsoft's commitment to providing the most innovative interactive experiences available on its Xbox (TM) video game system. Rare has been the mastermind behind some of the most popular video games in history, including such global multimillion sellers as "GoldenEye 007," "Perfect Dark," "Banjo-Kazooie" and "Donkey Kong 64." Under terms of the $375 million cash transaction, Rare will today begin creating exclusive console gaming blockbusters for Xbox. "

Ah.  I appologize for remembering it wrong.  Still there is no way Rare has made them anywhere near that kind of money considering what they have made.  Not to mention Microsoft has had to feed all that money into them for these last 5 years, even when they didn't make any games for 3 of them.  They can't be happy with how that turned out.  

I agree.  I'm sure for a while they will continue to make 360 games and possibly DS games.  However, they have the option to make other games now, and I think that's important to them.  They don't want to be tied to Halo forever, and that's understandable.  I'm looking forward to seeing what game they come up with next. 

Actually, Nintendo owned 49% stock in Rare, but did not sell that stock to MS. They just sold it, who knows why. Then MS came in and bought Rare for $375 mil. Nintendo didn't really make any money from the deal. All they did was lose a AAA developer. Games like Kameo and PD0, while not as good as previous Rare games, still could've helped Nintendo during the GC era.

Think about it, the Wii could be getting more games like Banjo 3 to make up for the shovelware that will inevitably plague the console like it plagues the ps2.

I think it would be highly unlikely that Bungie would refuse to do another Halo game sometime in the future considering how lucrative the franchise is.  Also in an interview done with Bungie's Frank O'Connor they ask him if they have grown tired of the Halo franchise and he had this to say:

"No. We love the Halo universe and still have projects going on within it, like the Peter Jackson collaboration and dowloadable content. If we ever return to the Halo universe, I'm sure we'd have cool stories to tell. The universe is, after all, infinite."*

*source: http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=17682

This is a strange move by MS, and Bungie. Halo is Bungie's biggest IP. Now what are they going to do if they don't make Halo? Oni? Myth? New IP?

Hopefully they get approval to make Halo DS.