Don’t you think its kinda funny how 343s goal for Infinite “capturing a broader and new generation of fans” was a complete failure when all they had to do was please the Halo fans that already existed? What I mean by this is common sense acknowledging how marketing has yet again ruined a franchise. (Almost) Although before infinites release the Halo community had seen its glory days. BUT also a very large fanbase from all walks of life. (Yes even you Halo 5 defenders ur part of this family now too) We all saw 343s ambitious goals for taking the world by storm with this new (rated T) halo game. Wanting to keep and please OG Halo fans that have been there since the beginning (like we would leave anyways been doing this since 2001 not going to give up after 20 years) but also wanting to get a newer generation of gamer guys and gals. A broader, newer, younger audiance. But what I dont think anybody thought about for god knows what reason is that no younger, newer halo fans were there to begin with. Now what I mean by this is that Halo was still relevant because of its already established fans either u started with CE in 2001 jumped on xbox live for Halo 2 or 3 to see what all your friends were talking about or barely got into halo with 4 and 5 (may god have mercy on your soul jk) the point being Halos newer “broader” audiance already existed. All we wanted was a great Halo game again and when you change direction and focus to an audience that doesn’t even exist yet over the people who are right in front of you who are already established being passionate for this series its kinda messed up tbh. Yeah you want the most amount of people to play your game which makes sense. But Halo is a different situation than most video game franchises. The fans that are already here have influence. Im pretty sure just all of the biggest HALO dedicated YouTubers have more subscribers,views, interactions than halo and 343 combined. Bottom line is if you want this Halo game to be successful focus on what the already existing fans want (thats me too HI IM RIGHT HERE IM ALIVE AND I EXIST) if the game is good Halo fans will make sure everyone knows it trust me. But the game is not doing good because you reached for fans that are literally not there and now the fans that have been here the whole time that you obviously dont care about are a little peeved… They are also making sure everyone knows it.
I’m not a fan of these newer halos personally. But at least I was able to enjoy other aspects to what Halo 4 and 5 had to offer. Like Warzone, Co-op campaign, custom games, forge, etc.
Infinite has nothing to offer me. Their appealing to “broader audience” and continuing to alienate long term fans shows that Microsoft’s goals are to just use Halo as a cash cow. Most people don’t realize that 343 is not just owned by Microsoft, they ARE Microsoft.
I like what you wrote but I found it difficult to read. Perhaps space out the sentences so it’s not just a giant wall of text. I think people see this and just back out immediately.
I mean, they basically said that outright in interviews so it’s hard to argue with that statement.
They wanted new people to come play the games because longtime fans are aging out and/or moving on. Sure, that’s fine, from a business standpoint.
The problem is the longtime fans were always going to be the root system that keeps a game like this alive, and now the roots are dying.
Its a little worse than you think, because they have been on the record knowing all this stuff for a long time while begging for feedback like a junkie while ignoring all of it completely. With such a focus you would have thought they would want the launch to launch strong and keep bodies in orbit however the fact it didnt happen is telling. The only way you can make sense of any of the mismanagement is that they are falling back on the “free” to make it always available to the mythical wider audience to return back to a stable game. This may pan out for the longer term halo fans who accepted a few years of down time on infinite before its playable pretty quickly, but why in the world would a returning player first exposed while desync runs rampant want to return? They would not, and it makes their entire process fundamentally flawed at best. Criminal mismanagement is a more appropriate summary though to be honest.
All the blunders of Infinite seem to be washed away by the fiction that the player is always free to return, ignoring they wont want to. I grew up on the franchise, but they could not have scuttled it more clearly if they gave up the pretense of trying to hide the sabotage. Like you literally could come up with heinous awful stuff, and they have already tried and failed at it so it becomes self parody. If someone told me the first development to halo infinite was to remove the scorpion gun knowing it was the single redeeming feature to the attempt at a new format for campaign I would have told them they are an awful writer that’s too wildly unrelatable and nonsensical.
I agree with pretty much all of this. I mean just look at me, I’m a long time fan. I’ve been a serious fan since Halo 3, but started playing back in the CE PC days. I feel like I had a carrot dangled in front of my face just to get kicked in the nuts and then kneed in the face. From the miserable state at launch with virtually no content to the complete castration to player expression and customization by the way of microtransactions. Another carrot followed by a swift kick.
I loved creating my custom Spartan. I can’t do that here. I loved playing co-op campaign. I can’t do that here… yet (had to wait almost a year for that). I loved playing custom games. I can’t do that here, customs are broken and there’s no social file sharing. I loved to forge. I can’t do that here.
All those things I loved to do in Halo are gone and sitting on a “To Do” list. A “To Do” list that’s overflowing with work and basically nothing has been done to reduce it in almost 9 months.
I know we’re kind of beating a dead horse here, but 99% of my friends list are diehard Halo fans, and they won’t even play Infinite. They at least somewhat enjoyed 4 and 5, so did I. None of my friends list wants to play Infinite. It’s just that bad. They didn’t capture a broader audience, and they lost the audience they already captured. 343 completely missed the mark on every target. Fingers crossed for Forge, but the physics just aren’t the same, so the customs will never be the same. Playing Infinite just isn’t fun. We just get irritated at the bugs, desync, and challenges.
Nope, I don’t find anything funny about it at all even though I know what you meant by “funny”.
343 has never been able to keep a decent player base so trying to attract the CoD/Fortnite players was as you said a complete failure, and what made matter worse was the fact that they released a broken beta and thought they would get by.
Everything that is wrong with Infinite is literally 100% on 343 in spite of Microsoft pushing to release this beta besides the shop/BP. That is on both Microsoft/343. 343 is responsible for…
How the game was designed
How a story is played out
The quality of the content
How much content is produced
What features are added
How customization works
What playlist are added
What game modes are added
How balancing takes place
Playtesting
All of this is 100% on any developer and many other things when designing any game, but in this case it’s not a game, we are still playing a beta and it going on a year. 343 as a developer has failed to create a Halo game and they have had since Halo 4 and 7 years with infinite to figure all this out.
I’m lost on how Microsoft even found this acceptable, let alone the higher-ups running 343.
It’s a brand to be milked with microtransactions Shadow. That’s how Microsoft sees it. 
Halo already had a broader audience. Let’s be real. It’s MS’ flagship title. I understand their logic but I also don’t understand their logic.
Now with Tatanka, I’m sure THAT will appeal to a broader audience but that desync has GOT to be fixed first or the player retention with it isn’t going to last.
I’ve noticed this with both Halo and Battlefield. Devs and publishers seem far too willing to completely ignore what their core audience wants to try and chase trends and appeal to a wider audience only to have that backfire and are unable to please either.
Elden Ring is a prime example of a studio sticking true to the foundation of their franchise and being massively successful for it. Not only did it go above and beyond the expectations of their fans but it also garnered a lot of new fans as well.
There was a lot of hype surrounding both Battlefield 2042 and Halo Infinite but due to poor management and decision making in the core game features it left fans nothing but disappointed which signaled to people outside the fanbase to stay away.
AMEN BROTHER!
Peace! 
I keep trying to tell y’all that the problem is at the root - how they see money, how they want to make it. They’re not interested in selling you a working product, because they can’t charge you to fix it. It is, once again, rampant capitalism.
This is true, but things have gotten a lot worse these last few years, and it’s not just with Microsoft.
I can deal with the BS Microsoft is pushing because I don’t care about cosmetics, but all the other half-backed BS that 343 did with infinite was uncalled for.
A futuristic sim city game would appeal to a broader audience…. Or a horror game with the flood would appeal to a broader audience… or a click and point adventure game set on Mombasa would appeal to a broader audience…
Any game would that didn’t include ‘Spartans’ shooting aliens would appeal to a broader audience.
However you need an audience before you find a broader one and Halo 4,5 and Infinite lost that audience.
(Ten steps forward ten steps back)
Now they need to focus on finding their audience again before they think of bringing in a broader one.
And it’ll probably be glitchy af when it does arrive. Everything else was.
Also firefight. You can’t do that either.
Next one will be Diablo, I mean Halo Immortal.
I dont see how 343 is going to turn this game around, it will be difficult to bring back the players.
They probably lost 95% of the fans also, not just the causals.
This is such a big failure on all levels.
Halo could have been alive and well if it had more classic maps, game modes and playlists and working multiplayer.
If they had skilled matchmaking from start that would be fine, but now there are so few players left in the game that its hard to find good games.
I can find games but a majority of the matches just runs bad.
Its so sad how MS killed this franchise, its not coming back.
Bungie should’ve never left as developer. I had loads of fun w/Hslo 4. Halo 5 sucked badly though.
The problem is if you’re going to change the formula with every subsequent release how are you going to keep new fans
Honestly mcc does a better job at attracting new fans than infinite does because it isn’t a bare bones game that lacks content filled with strict sbmm that loves to give you matches with high ping and dysync