I doubt it is even thoughts over how powerful Halo is as an IP. I would be shocked if MS corporate hadn’t realized that any 343 Halo is going to get shit on because “this isn’t Bungie”. And people hate 343 enough that firing them and pushing the leads out won’t raise any red flags.
But yeah. Look at how much damage control MS did when they were releasing fucking Pentiment on switch (look, I love that game with all my heart but you know things are fucked when people remember it exists). There is zero chance 343 “closes” until the next full generation… probably that gen’s refresh SKU consoles. Because it would instantly be interpreted as “xbox is dead”.
But gutting Bethesda? We already see people in this very thread talking about how it is good because they didn’t like a game one of the studios did.
mynachmadarch@kbin.social 1 month ago
It's possible people won't accept a new game just because of the name attached, but that's not what I'm seeing.
I still play Infinite pretty heavily and most of the people I chat with there are saying the same, thank the lord leadership changed, let's give it a year or two and see.
After that, who knows.