Thought this was a really good discussion regarding the subject, Youtube Link
Everything they said could be summarised into less than 60 seconds.
They need to do far better with their videos. While their early insight and technical skills are appreciated their process for making the videos is just a discussion format and takes too long to really express the core content of each video.
Back to the topic, spectator mode, sure it would be nice to have for customs or matchmaking. If they just went the route of dedicated servers already these sorts of modes would be far easier and less taxing the current xbox live platform.
In terms of 343i why would they implement a taxing system when MLG already does this for them. Look at all the capture and media networking products out there now, do professionals really need the game to do this for them?
I suspect the answer is probably no, if they’re so concerned with streaming live game they can do this via a website with a simple splitter, as for MLG events they already have such equipment. The equipment is really not that expensive, the systems for them streaming to the website etc are still required so the spectator mode is really not a 100% solution as these guys think it is.
As for casuals I don’t think I’d rather watch than play Halo but they do have a point as far as watching your buddies you’re about to join. Although with theatre and replays does it really matter we can’t watch a live stream?
Also post launch I think we’ll find Waypoint releasing something similar to Bungie Pro and video rendering/sharing/tagging etc. So again why introduce spectator mode that would detract from other premium services.
In actual fact these MLG guys are really just upset that 343i aren’t solving their sharing issues. In my opinion if you’re going to run pro events you should have decent equipment to display/share the various inputs/outputs to spectators. It’s not that hard to do really.