Whay doesn't Microsoft buy more companies?

[Scoobes]

MonstaMack said:
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).

They disbanded Ensemble before Halo Wars was even released. They basically got rid of all PC-centric studios plus a few others that weren't bringing in much profit for the development costs.

Ensemble expanded for a range of titles beyond the usual RTS "Age of... " they were famous for but those titles were cancelled by Microsoft. They even had an MMO in the works. Anyway, they expanded for those titles but when they were cancelled they maintained the staff, so they had high costs and had only produced RTS games (PC centric) with not a lot of diversity. It was for these reasons that Microsoft had them disbanded even though they had produced a 20 million+ selling franchise in the "Age of... " RTS games. Shame really.