Fable also seems to be a good series for sales as both games have sold rather well.
If your going to own companies they need to pull in a profit to outside of just earning AAA ratings. Maybe after MS spent so much on Rare they thought buying companies wouldn't lead them to as much profit.
They cut off a whole bunch of studios not too long ago - The studio that did Flight Simulator, Esembles Studios (Age of Empires) and Bizare Creations (PGR series. Now doing Blur for activision) and years before that they dumped the studios that did Amped, Top Spin, Links, NHL Rivals and NFL Fever. I'm guessing all of them due to profit issues (Halo Wars was a great game, but I guess they were expecting gangbusters with Esemble behind the helm and the Halo name).
It's just that simple.
