Bugie, epic games n Remedy, these three developers have a good relationship with M$. it was quite foolish for M$ not to acquire them.

you thoughts.

I think bioware would have been a great purchase, but they've gone EA and EA has gone  ps3, EPIC will never be brought, and they let bungie slip away, which to me was very foolish.

Remedy is now thier best bet and a good one at that.

Remedy and Mistwalker for mine, Harmonix would have been great.

Mistwalker (according to wikipedia) came into fruition with the help of Microsoft. Provided money etc, I think they are already and unofficial source of games, Remedy would be clever especially if MS doesnt want to lose Alan Wake and in fact push the franchise.

Harmonix for Dance Central and Rock Band. I think MS could have taken Rockband to the next level that it never seemed to take.

There are other companies as well, but the way I see it is MS seems pretty happy with 3rd parties ie Bungie and Epic. The reason Bungie wasnt bought is now pretty obvious I thought, I think MS didnt want another Rare case and simply buying a company doesnt mean anything if you dont have the people, MS couldnt make Goldeneye but Nintendo could for some reason. I think because of this MS is a lot more cautious.

I believe bungie pulled an insomniac and got their independance

the biggest mistake MS made was not aquiring bioware. the mass effect series, dragon age, and future games would be 360 exclusive. swtor might have been pc and 360. bioware is such a huge company. they have like 800 employs they are going to be making a game a year or more from now on. ea boaught them and pandemic for like 900 million. that is a baragon for such an amazing dev.

My thoughts are that I don't care about 'officially owned internal studios' as Microsoft is in a better situation to strike deals with developers and offer more variety. 

I don't see how. They are stuck with Activision for 10 years. If anything, they are basically in jail now lol.

Well they're free to pursue other ideas beyond Halo.

Didn't Pandemic get disbanded now though? I remember reading up on Saboteur and was hoping they'd make a second one, but the studio got disbanded, unless I got them confused.

if anything they should let RARE go , they haven't done anything ever since they joined MS, and aquire someone that does, for example all the XBL developers that have the potential to make a great platformer.

Edit :  though now that i remember , i do hope they make a Kameo sequel , that game was awesome.