Thats not really how that works.  You have to take into account the following.

1. More people will buy it because its exclusive.

2. They only have to pay to develop on 1 system thus cutting costs by quite a large margin.

3. Plus i'm pretty sure Rock Band sells better on the 360 than on any other console.

Wow, sort of suprised this is your first civilized discussion on VGChartz. Glad to have this civil debate with you.

Well it’s really only the second discussion I’ve ever had on VGChartz and I tried to make the first as civil as possible. Unfortunately opposition isn’t always willing to see eye-to-eye on keeping it civil.

The question of mind share. If you go around asking gamers what their favorite Harmonix game is, I bet most will be like "Who". Now I'm not saying asking at PAX or a game convention. Just asking normal gamers, the mind share isn't going to be nearly as high as it is for us educated gamers. But if you asked what did you like better Guitar Hero or RockBand then you might get answers. I believe franchising is what drives market share and mind share. Brand awareness is what drives these things. Harmonix as a brand is little known outside the hardcore gaming world. Its the franchises that are known and drive the marketshare.

Agreed. I mentioned this in my post when saying all Microsoft really has to do to market a new Harmonix title is say “From the creators of …” to get the less involved gaming community to turn their heads and pay attention.

Yes their are plenty of things Harmonix could do if bought by Microsoft. But not much Microsoft themselves couldn't do without Harmonix. Infact if you and I can think of great idea's why couldn't Microsoft themselves come up with these idea's? Again Harmonix while being a great studio doesn't offer much that Microsoft can't do without them and there for why purchase them?

Thinking of an idea and executing it are two very different things. I’ve had plenty of great ideas. In grade 9 I came up with the idea to have a 6 cylinder engine car and to save gas put it to 4 cylinders during city use with the press of a button. Clearly I had 0 know-how of how this could be done or even if it was possible. What Microsoft could gain from Harmonix is the programming talent and work ethic to bring fresh ideas to the table and be able to execute on them. They’ve proven in the past that they have the intellect to learn and deliver on goals and concepts even when no one has done them before. And to do so at a high quality is a real talent. It’s much like the first 3D Mario being the first 3D game and having nailed and set in stone the paradigms for 3D games to come (movement, use of space, camera, etc.) on its first attempt. It’s a rare talent in the industry to do something new and get it right for the most part on the first try. Harmonix is one of those studios.

Actually yes the purchase of those studio did cause the companies to fall apart. AOE for example was big in 1990's and AOE:Age Of Kings is credited for many advancements in the RTS genre. However after getting aquired by Microsoft several staff left the studio and the studio reworked how they made RTS games. The games they released as a Microsoft studio (Age Of Mythology and AOE 3, HaloWars) were arguably no where near as good as AOE and Age Of Kings. What about Bungie? again shortly after Microsoft took over staff began to leave the company. Alexander Seropian  one of the co-founders of Bungie got upset with Microsoft's handling of Bungie and left to form his own studio (WideLoadGames) Other founders and even many of the creators of Halo began leaving in droves between 2003-2009. Before finally Microsoft let Bungie go independant. In most cases when a studio gets bought up by a publisher it looses core staff.  Notice of the studios you mentioned two are either closed or close to being closed, one has gone independant.

Key word arguably. All of those games were very well made, high-quality products. I’d argue that they were just as good. It really depends on the person’s mindset going into a game. It’s a pretty common stigma that whatever Microsoft does is going to ruin something. Sometimes it has basis and sometimes it doesn’t. When MS bought Ensemble people instantly got it into their heads that the quality of the products would not be at the same level anymore. Whether they are or not is up to the person’s mindset going in. I played most of those games and was actually really surprised about Halo Wars. Ensemble was extremely clever in designing that game for the controller. They figured out the limitations and built the gameplay around the strengths (ie. Less resource management and more combat). I thought that game shows their talent to adapt very well and still create an excellent product given completely different advantages and limitations. I guess it just depends on perspective for this one and I respect yours. You have your reasons for thinking as such.

As for the studios closing down, if they have gone through such changes I haven’t really noticed as they seem to have attracted equal quality in talent from the departures. The games have been consistently good from these devs, IMO. But I guess I can’t argue the fact that the buyouts did change up teams quite a bit. You learn something every day J

Good idea's but as I said earlier if you can come up with these idea's whats stopping Microsoft's internal teams with coming up with equally good ideas without Harmonix? For example Microsoft could form their own music based studio, hire some of the BudCat team that worked on Band Hero and Guitar Hero. Maybe hire some Harmonix staff and mix in some of Microsoft's existing staff. Whoola you have a great music genre studio that could probubly produce better games then Harmonix and at half the cost or even less. Why buy a studio with no valuable IP's, when you can create your own new studio like Microsoft did with 343Studios? No need to blow 90-mill.

Well as you said before, mixing up teams and tearing them apart might not be the best idea as it may make the quality of the product suffer. Yes they could take key personnel from proven teams but it might not work out for the individual members. And then they’ll have spent some amount of money still and gotten a way worse product out of it than to have spent 90 mill and get the full team. We have yet to see if 343 Studios can deliver at Bungie’s level. It’s much like the Dallas Cowboys (if you watch NFL… not sure!). They’ve got quite a few players that people want on their Fantasy teams because they post some great numbers. But as a team this season they’re 2-7 and are embarrassing to watch as an overall team.

Exactly imagine what Microsoft could come up with, on their own without Harmonix. Then tell me that it is worth 90-mill for Microsoft to purchase Harmonix? The only way I see it benefiting Microsoft is if perhaps they secured an exclusive agreement with MTV for music content in all Microsoft's future games. If Microsoft could aquire the liscenses and support of MTV then it might be worth it. But for the stand alone studio I really doubt its worth all the trouble.

That’s actually a good point. A music game dev with no music to work with isn’t the best idea.

Plus Market share for Harmonix games has gone to hell. Also when BudCat took over Guitar Hero it continued to sell well without Harmonix. Again its brand recognition that drives mind share and market share. Now that RockBand and Guitar Hero brands are waining they are no longer valueble. Even Activision realizes that , I mean they closed BudCat which was arguably Harmonix only real competition in the music genre.

They’re no longer valuable this gen. Agreed. I think if MS bought Harmonix for the remainder of this gen I’d use them to establish their unique experiences in other MS platforms like Windows Media and WinMo 7. Then when next gen rolls around the market for music games will be completely fresh and new and they can continue from there.

The fact that MTV wants to sell also shows that Harmonix just isn't worth what they were a few years ago. Their brand's and IP's and even their quality has diminished. Once taken over that would continue to deminish.

All it takes is one new idea and well execution on Harmonix’s part to turn that around. It’s not so much that their brand or quality has been reduced. It’s just that everyone and their mother has already invested into the music genre and feel no need to upgrade. I have a full Rock Band 1 set. I played it for a few months and it’s been sitting around ever since. If I feel the need to go to play it again (which I have lately) I could go out and buy Rock Band 3 for $60 or get Rock Band 2 plus all the DLC discs for less than that.

Alright I think that’s good for this thread. If you reply I’ll read it but I doubt I’ll reply again. I’m a bit paranoid about resurrecting this thread too many times. haha. Thanks for the great back and forth!

i don't see it, MS seems to have an aversion to having first party developers 

Harmonix fits in perfectly with Microsofts Live marketplace and Kinect strategies. For instance their next music game could include both music playing and dancing. I.E. If you buy a track for Rockband you'll also add a track to Dance central and it can work in with Zune etc so if you buy music you'll also be able to get the MP3 for personal use.