MS leaving the console race would be good for gamers.

[poklane]

Microsoft leaving would be catastrophic unless they sell it to someone who can do good things with it, or unless Nintendo steps their game up massivally, has 3rd party support on par with PS4 and keeps making good exclusives. PS4 vs Wii 2? Could work, however I doubt this since Nintendo doesn't have these 'hardcore' exclusives (God of War, Uncharted, The Last of Us etc). PC is a whole other league than the PS4, and Wii U, well... lets not talk about that, that would need to be repaplaced to compete.

Competition is an excellent thing. Lets just purely talk about Xbox and Playstation for now:

• What state would Playstation Network be in if Xbox Live never would have existed or Microsoft wouldn't have made a big push with Xbox 360? Probably much, much worse.
• Games with Gold never would have existed if Sony never came up with the Instant Game Collection.
• Without Sony, the Xbox One would have had Used-Game policies and 24 hours check ins.
• Without the innovations Microsoft made on the Xbox 360 controller, the Dualshock 4 controller probably would have been much worse.
• Without competition, hardware in both PS4 and XB1 probably would be a lot worse.
• Without both Microsoft and Sony making their own, good games, the other would have no reason to make even better games.
• Competition is key: Sony thought that after the beast called the PS2, they could easily dominate the next-gen (PS3 vs. Xbox 360), so they forced a high price and a very late release on us, with absolute shit architecture. Were they wrong? Hell yeah they were wrong! What made them fix all this later? Microsoft's Xbox 360. Now look at Microsoft. Microsoft thought that after the success called the Xbox 360, they could easily dominate this gen (PS4 vs Xbox One). So, they tried to force things on us like 24 hours check ins, used games policies, a ridiculous high price for the hardware you get and an always on Kinect you're forced to buy and use. Were they wrong? Yes, they were wrong!

If Microsoft leaves the console industry, we'll all be doomed unless one of these 2 scenarios happens:

1. Someone buys the Xbox brand and does excellent, excellent stuff with it.
2. Nintendo comes with a new console. Hardware is on par or petter than the PS4. Huge increase in 3rd party support, better network, more western based exclusives
3. Or, DOOM.