Big, mainstream 3rd party developers should just stay 3rd party imho. Us gamers don't benefit in any way from such studios to become 1st party.

What I do support is acquiring distinctive talented start-ups that could improve the 'personality' of the brand. It's a shame that the relationship with ThatGameCompany didn't really pan out (I believe they were close to bankrupt at Journey's release), because having a studio like that as 1st party would've been something I'd like to see.

But let's not forget that many studios just don't want to be bought, but want to stay independent.

One perk of becoming 1st party is having bigger budget and better support from other teams.

Could be, but that sort of support can also come from a 3rd party publisher.

Buy Platinum and market their poorly selling games properly.

Could be. And the dev can choose between become 1st party and publisher.

I hope MicroSony grows their own shit and doesn't buy up studios. You can strike gold like Bungie or ND but it seems the studios have better chances of staying in business and also keeping more artistic freedom if they remain 3rd party.

Level 5s bread and butter are handheld games. Sony would have no use for them. I'd say nintendo would need them more, but apart from the odd console game like Ni no Kuni 2 now and then, they get all their games. 

From would probably be smart though 

Plus growing your own entirely from the ground up shows more promise and shows that they are where they are, if they were say a studio owned by the competition you could easily imagine the hate or fan wars that would stem from either side along with the passability that the competition buys the studio and allows it to die which just shows how bad it can be for everyone compared to allowing the studio to stand on it's own legs or being home grown. The last thing I want is independant studios/publishers that I've come to love over the years and buy from being bought out by someone else I'm not invested in and having my fave IP's snatched from my platform and then being forced into playing musical chairs for years on end (which a lot of people don't always like doing for many things in life), it would both irk and depress me.

I honestly don't have a problem with Sony buying up studios. They tend to support a lot of different genres and with Sony at the top, Japanese games (especially JRPGs) can flourish more over here.

I couldn't help myself I'm sorry T^T