Prediction: Microsoft to become largest 3rd party publisher.

[Pemalite]

Dante9 said:

Microsoft has a history of buying studios and then letting them die, so we will have to see what will remain standing of their recent shopping spree in the long run. But that's a strategy in itself, it's not only what you can provide, but what you can take off the board to force certain outcomes.

Every publisher has a history of closing studios.

Lets not let sensationalism get in the way of facts here.

1) Sony closed BigBig Studios, Evolution Studios, Guerrilla Cambridge, Incognito Entertainment, Zipper Interactive, Psygnosis/SCE Liverpool and are gutting Bungie right now.

2) Nintendo closed Sora, Nintendo of America Special Products, Tokyo R&D products, lots of mess surrounding their EAD divisions which got rolled into other divisions, consolidated or closed down.

3) EA with Bullfrog, Westwood, Maxis, Black Box Games, Mythic Entertainment, Visceral Games, Pandemic Studios.

4) Microsoft with Lionhead, Ensemble Studios, FASA studios, Digital Anvil.

5) Activision Blizzard with Sierra Enterainment, Red Octane, Bizarre Creations, Radical Entertainment.

Microsoft is a stupidly successful company who makes certain choices based around return on investment, there is a reason why they are currently valued at 2.93 Trillion and is valued at approximately 16x the value of Sony -and- Nintendo combined.

The point being, studios closing and opening is a normal industry eb-and-flow that coincides with consumer demand/expectation... And ultimately profit.

I was absolutely devastated with Ensemble studios closed as they were primarily a PC developer, which should never have happened... But worlds edge and relic entertainment have done amazingly well with handling the franchise.
Developers close, they go elsewhere and start new studios, adding new investment into the industry.

For example... Digital Anvil closed and so did my hopes of a Freelancer sequel, another PC title... Thankfully the developers of those titles ended up scattering across the industry... Christ Roberts went onto found Cloud Imperium Games and of course StarCitizen.. Where Digital Anvil programmer Paul Isaac started working on the Halo games or Tony Bratten who went onto do Super Meat Boy.

The talent from those studios don't just disappear, they go elsewhere, sometimes to the competition where they actually make a positive difference.