I read your post and I get that. I am talking about 343 continuing to make Halo games vs. taking a break and doing something else. If there still a demand for Halo games why should they cut back on them, when we are already talking about 3+ years between each game, and when they are making a massive investment in new IP with their new studios? To me having your cake and eating it means a new Halo game every 3 years plus a ton of other IP in between from all the other studios Microsoft has acquired.
If your point is that there might not be enough demand for Halo to justify a 500 million development budget, then I can agree to that, with the caveat that the 500 million figure is a rumour at this point, and even if true we don't know over what timescale the money is being spent.
Hopefully that makes a bit more sense now