Only people who will say yes to this are people who don't like Halo as a franchise, I honestly think. 343 are the perfect studio for Halo and they have done an amazing job with it.
Nothing is wrong with giving spinoffs to other studios, but they would be dumb to ever take the main franchise from 343 after all the success they've had with it. They know what they're doing.
Even with a better progression system, many more maps and modes, Halo Infinite's population STILL drops as much as it has down to the most hardcore of the hardcore because people desire those battle Royale games that they and their friends are playing, that the streamers are playing. They desire to jump around and play different things every now and then.
A massive number of Xbox gamers moved on to Elden Ring. A game I doubted before release, but as it turns out really, really is something special. A traditionalist MP Halo has no chance against that and against all the other games available on Xbox right now. Just before Elden Ring dropped Halo Infinite had
The Halo audience is older than it use to be. The existing Halo MP formula, regardless of content (which does need to be better), isn't as attractive to as many people as it use to be. Even for many older players they've moved on. I haven't been affected by this dilemma because I was never a big Halo MP guy to begin with. I didn't become a Halo fan till right before Halo 3's release when I read Halo: The Fall of Reach and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. Those two books are what made the Halo Universe interesting enough for me to seriously give the videogames a chance. And it took some getting use to to find my appreciation for Halo as a videogame franchise. I'm all about Halo Campaign because of how much I enjoy the lore.
The Halo many remember had far less competition in the shooter space.
Not just that, there was less competition on the Xbox platform itself. There are now many games that are more than worthy enough to dominate people's attention over everybody just playing Halo simply because there isn't much else better on the platform and a lot of games skip the platform. Knowledge of what is available is also on a whole other level now in the Youtube/Twitch content creator era. The accessibility to all those games, especially backwards compatible ones, is also all the easier with Game Pass.
Outriders is a good game getting crazy content, yet it's not in the top 49 games on Xbox and it's on Game Pass. Sea of Thieves, which is insanely popular, is #28 on on Xbox eco-system.
Master Chief Collection is #44 on Xbox.
Halo Infinite is in the top 15 on Xbox.
Looking at steam you would think Halo Infinite and MCC trade blows with one another. Not the case if you look at Microsoft's storefront.
But the reality is that the market has changed. It isn't 343 that's somehow doing all this stuff wrong. Should content for MP come quicker? Yes, that would be nice, but I don't believe for a second it makes a massive difference in the current number of people playing the game on places like steam and even on Xbox and on Microsoft's store.
And also, considering Game Pass is the most exciting thing going at Xbox right now, and it's a huge success (15 million new subscribers since 2020, now sitting at over 25 million) it's important to see what those subscribers are playing most. And would you look at that... Halo Infinite is the #2 most played game among Game Pass subscribers. So you mean to tell me the 2nd most played thing on the subscription that has Microsoft throwing all this money at gaming is the same Halo Infinite. Sea of Thieves is #6.
As to why you don't see MLB The Show on the game pass list, it means many more people on Xbox are playing a version of MLB The Show 22 they bought rather than playing the Game Pass version.
And for those who might think it isn't fair to only look at Game Pass subscribers, I say why the hell not? Game Pass is the main reason Microsoft is dropping all this money on acquisitions and why they're so all in on gmaing. And their previous big buy before Activision, Bethesda, accounts for 3 of the top 10 most played in Game Pass.