Well for al people who feel a bit concerned, Bugie hears you and Bungie.net overlord, Anachronos gives us some reassuring news( taken from a forum conversation from bungie.net):
Normally, from an outside position, I'd agree with you. But I know a little bit more about the internal goings on than you, so please consider a different perspective:
But please understand that we are very protective of Halo. While you may think it is being stretched too thin, we turn down way more pitches than we accept. The movie only came about after we were able to strike a deal that gave us the level of quality control we wanted. Admittedly, it could still suck, but now it has a fairly good chance of being a quality film versus the usual "fire and forget" quality of many video game to movie transfers.
The Halo RTS was also something that we were initially resistant to, but when Ensemble came along, well, you know the rest. Remember - we are gamers too, and we're not going to give our blessing to a crappy idea. Of course, that doesn't guarentee success - making a fun game is hard. But Ensemble is good at what they do, and we are actively involved in not only giving them feedback on their game, but also making sure the fiction matches up with what they are doing. We see as a way to tell more of the story than we would otherwise be able to. It is also going to be interesting to see them take it back to where the Halo concept originally started (it was a RTS game first, then changed to a 3rd person shooter, then finally a first person shooter now).
The best part is that you are the ultimate judge - if you don't like the non-core stuff (anything outside the 3 Bungie made games), then don't buy them. The 3 games will stand on their own. But for those that do like RTS games, we have some Halo for them, just like we'll have some Halo for the movie goer, and some Halo for readers in the books, etc.
As for the comments regarding Frankie and Sketch's participation in these forums... well, that is two fold. First, Sketch is always busy managing the details of our PR and marketing - we have to stay on top of that at all times to make sure marketing is how we like it. Otherwise, those guys do their own thing, and if we weren't involved, we can't really have input into what they do. Frankie, furthermore, spends a lot of time working with the story guys, making sure story continuity is preserved and make sure our fiction rocks. One of the reasons KP was hired was to deal with his increased responsibility. I do try to stay involved in the forums, but there is no one who's job it is to do that - we all have our own "real jobs." That being said, maybe we'll eventually be able to hire "a KP" person for Sketch... but those types of people are very hard to find.
Meanwhile, all I can ask is that you trust us to do the right thing. I also trust that you'll tell us if you think something sucks, but I ask that you wait until you experience that thing first. After all, it isn't like Halo 3 is being affected by these external partners. It is part of Sketch's job, after all, to insulate the guys working on the game from this kind of thing.
I don't think we are Microsoft's -blam!-, as you call it. We are part of them, true, but while the realities of doing business sometimes force a hard choice here and there, that would be the case if were still independently owned... and it would like occur far more often than does now (which is rarely). Microsoft grants us a lot of freedom to do what we think is right for Halo, because it makes good business sense to use our expertise. So far, I think the relationship has produced some good results, don't you think?