Because competition makes for better EVERYTHING!

Microsoft was seemingly just sitting idle. They weren't even keeping their games "exclusive" anymore. Microsoft seemed so.. neuter'd. It was all just too good to be true.

WE THOUGHT SHIT WAS SWEET! THEY HAD US FOOLED!

Microsoft allowed us to believe all of this! We actually went for the okie doke, let our guards down, then while we have our backs turned, they turn around and VICIOUSLY snatch the rug FROM UNDER OUR FEET

Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Starfield? Microsoft just gave us a reason to own their console

There's a huge difference between a company home growing it's own IPs and games, vs a company simply buying it's own IPs and games from a stock of already existing 3rd party developers.

People whine and bitch about exclusives not being on their console of choice, when the fact of the matter is many Sony/Nintendo exclusives never would have existed if not for Sony/Nintendo. This is not the case for a majority of Xbox "exclusives" though. Those games would have existed as 3rd party offerings regardless of Microsoft's acquisitions.

The sad thing is that MS has a pretty bad track record when it comes to buying studios, when you look at the long term.

Rare: Purchased and forced to make Kinect games. Hasn't made a high quality game in over ten years now.

Ensemble Studios: Shuttered

Lionhead: Forced to make Kinect crap, and shuttered

Mojang: Still makes minecraft. This one turned out okay.

Microsoft's other acquisitions are too recent to be able to take a long term style look at.

Edit: I don't think all of these closures, or lack of good games are entirely MS' fault. Rare was already on a downward spiral when MS bought them. Same could be said for Lionhead's internal problems, despite the greatness of Fable II. But what I don't think MS has the capability of doing is taking a failing studio and saving them. They aren't like Sony. They won't be able to take a bad studio like Compulsion games and turn them into a good studio, in the same way that Sony did with Guerilla.

I think Obsidian is going to be just fine under MS.

343 is going to make consistently worse games over the years.

Bethesda's main branch will continue to suck with Fallout 76. I expect Starfield, and ESVI to be letdowns.

Doom/Dishonored will still be good franchises.

Doublefine will be a coin toss.

Wasteland 4 will be good. The second that dev makes anything other than the Wasteland series though, will be a bad time.

Undead Labs will continue to suck.

Ninja Theory will make Hellblade 2 be awesome, but their non-Hellblade stuff is pretty hit or miss.

Gears 6,7,8,9,10, etc. will be good, but will have more and more MTX thrown in.

I miss Ensemble Studios. The RTS genre hasn't been the same since they left. I'm still worried about how AoE4 is going to turn out.

You do know their games cost 100's of millions right? Staying exclusive to MS means it will be filled with MT's to pay for it. Game pass won't pay for it by itself, good luck luck.

More pressure on Sony means more discounts. Also, with xCloud, it might not even be necessary. 

This is mostly a result of the Mattrick era pushing MS away from gaming and into turning into an HTPC. Phil seems to be reversing this; Mojang was the first sign, then their relationship with Moon Studios and now Everwild. 

Microsoft was always in the game, just being a bit of a smaller player when it came to consoles. The question is how long will Sony be playing the game, since Microsoft could easily undo Sony if they make four more acquisitions like this. Imagine if Microsoft buys Square Enix, Ubisoft, EA and Take two. Then Sony is in the same position as Nintendo was during the gamecube era with much less brand/IP power and money than Nintendo.

Ok, so how buying studios is making competition stronger? We now have less independent companies making games 

Or do you think hardware competition  is the only one that matters ?

As someone who is buying both next gen consoles by the beginning of 2021 (PS5 at launch, and XBSX in January), the exclusivity stuff shouldn’t bother me much. That being said, I was fully expecting The Elder Scrolls VI to be VR ready, and if it is, I am not yet so sure MS is going to have a headset compatible for their console. Something I know is in the cards for the PS5. And if that’s the case, that’s a bummer, because Skyrim is one of my favourite games to play in VR. :/

Do you shout dragon words while looking into the dark eyes of your modded Thomas the Train dragon as it choo choo's in retort?