They have nothing to gain, because it's all good, forward thinking news that makes them effectively a permanent and dominating force in the gaming market. This is bad news for Steam and it would be a wake up call for both Sony and Nintendo if they didn't already have the infrastructure themselves to react accordingly. Nintendo with NX and Sony with PSNow.

What I don't get is: Why just close them down? It seems really spiteful and disrespectful to throw away the ip's and not allow some acquisition or just let it go independent like Sony did with SOE (now Daybreak Games).

Microsoft's goal was to always make home console gaming more like PC gaming. It looks to me like they are fulfilling this goal.

I do think that this could give Nintendo some much-needed breathing room with the NX. I still think that home consoles have more of a future than dedicated handhelds do and so this is an important opportunity for Nintendo to take advantage of. Hopefully the NX is at least equal to the PS4 in terms of power and that it can step in and directly compete with the PS4.

I think Nintendo is doing the same thing with the NX.

We just have to see how it ACTUALLY performs.

the IPs aren't dead, MS can still use them or license them out

@ topic )

they could snatch up some of the talent from those studios, but I heard MS is already in talks with the devs and the majority might simply go to other MS studios

That's the first I have heard about MS repurposing them to other studios. Would that allow for those studios to pump out more games or would it simply be more people working on Halo/Gears/Forza?

Most studios just combined the ppl from the closed ones. So they probably went to either 343, gears studio or turn 10 as that's pretty much all they have left for core gaming.

I wonder if Microsoft will try to get new studios to replace the ones that were closed or just stick to what they have left? Kinda weird how slim their first party became after offering some good stuff in the original Xbox and 360.

hm, probably depends on the studio

Rare is said to have several teams and larger staff for all of them could mean either bigger projects or more small projects at once

for Halo on the other hands I think they would simply use different "teams" to create different multiplayer components/maps at once resulting in an even bigger game

For Sony they can get some former Lionhead devs but Nintendo on the otherhand gets nada ...

Nintendo needs to see what works and what doesn't work for the NX and implement it properly