Honestly I am a little gobsmacked that that you are suggesting that Sony are to blame for MS's practices. Lets face it, neither MS and Sony have shied away from this sort of thing in the past though obviously this is something that MS seems to have stopped.

However, if what you say is correct, I think that Sony will be pleased to think that MS fears them so much that they spent billions buying a game publisher a,nd may do so again if this current rumour is to be believed. Ultimately, any and all responsibilities for MS's decisions have to fall on them. They underdeveloped their game studios, focused on the wrong things (kinect), and even when they tried really hard (in the 8th gen) , the games they have made have been generally average. To Sony's credit, when they were facing the exact same situation in the PS3 era, they reduced their reliance on external developers, built up their studios (and yes bought a few that they had good relationships with) and came out with a better offering.

In this same situation, MS has essentially said it is way too hard to match Sony and has done the ultimate moneyhat. Don't get me wrong - buying Bethesda was a totally sensible move if you have the money so I have no problem with that. But lets not blame Sony for MS's own failings. 

1. As I said, IO Interactive is building an entire studio for this, backed by Microsoft, not all successful MMOs are known IPs only but yes, a lot are years old, know why, cause they're MMOs, Lol. There's no reason to assume IO Interactive's MMO won't be big simply on the basis of it being an MMO, that's ridiculous, you know nothing about it, I'm fairly sure I know the real reason why you think it won't be big though.

2. Feels like you basically ignored everything I said, Lol. This new company, WB Discovery will not have to rely on licensing, AT&T is still in huge amounts of debts, AT&T as recently as 3 months ago sold another studio from Warner Bros, the core focus of this new company is a movie/tv streaming service to compete with Disney Plus/Netflix. AT&T does not need some gaming products to boost their own IPs as they're already massive but if they wanted to they could just as easily license them out to Microsoft, it's a win win. Microsoft pays AT&T for the studios, Microsoft pays AT&T for the license, AT&T no longer has to fund development.

Also as I already said, AT&T doesn't own the IP to Harry Potter, Lego or Lord of the Rings so they're already paying some companies, it would not be surprising in the slightest if AT&T does decide to sell a few more studios, I'm not sure who exactly but I would put TT Games and Monolith most at risk.

3. Just posting the law you're referring to since you never seem to source your stuff yourself. Anyway, own enough stake and you become the owner, but you even say the law isn't tested yet, I would say you can doubt all you want but it says right there in the law that there are exceptions and it isn't impossible, it is mostly focused on companies which "deal with sensitive technologies" which isn't gaming companies, Lol.

But, we won't see Microsoft do it anyway, if anything it will be Tencent who starts acquiring Japanese companies.

4. Meh. You don't read anything I say. You act like Bethesda was on the brink of closure, Lol. They did suffer a titles under-performing but would have been fine, I've never claimed that Microsoft is acquiring Take-Two but to suggest that they wouldn't sell if they were available cause Microsoft is in last place is laughable, then why did Zenimax sell to Microsoft? You see how many folk are acquiring lately? I seriously doubt Microsoft wasn't Zenimax only suitor.

I don't think any public company is up for sale until I hear about it from a reputable source but c'mon man, a lot of these multi-billion dollar public companies are owned by nothing more than a collection of rich folk and holding companies holding various amounts of shares, if they were deciding to sell they would not give a f*ck about allegiances, about who is in last place, about who they have more timed exclusives with, Lol.

You're basically suggesting it'll go like this.

Microsoft: We will give you $10bn to sell to us.
Company: Nah, you're in last place buddy, I'm gonna accept the $6bn offer instead.

Insanity, Lol. You're applying console warrior logic to business. You think Zenimax owners (which included a Private Equity firm) gave a shit that Microsoft was in last place when Microsoft rolled up and threw $7.5bn at them? Lol.

Again, GTA 6 won't be timed exclusivity, that's even more laughable than a lot of the stuff you've been condescending towards users for believing in this thread.

Your posts are funny. They already explained to you that Nintendo approached Sony to make a CD add-on to the SNES called the Nintendo Playstation.

It was CD-based.

Rather the irony that you failed to catch is that Sony's greedy tactics turned Nintendo off when they tried to steal their licensing formula.

And the further irony is that those same greedy tactics like stealing Square and moneyhatting devs to get exclusivity is what will eventually expel them from the market because Microsoft's wallet is so big they win by default.

And I am personally against these trends, but given that either Sony or Microsoft dominates, Microsoft releasing everything multiplat except for on their competitors' platforms makes it easier to root for them.

@OP. Nintendo has survived snobbing from 3rd parties for decades, they are now fully independant and have absolutely zero to worry about.

Funny and true, Nintendo has zero reason to worry, Microsoft could acquire another 3 major publishers and there's a good chance Nintendo will still outsell them, I don't think any company comes close to Nintendo's ability to push consoles, their 1st party console selling power or that their hardware is just more interesting on itself.

There's a reason why Microsoft/Sony more often than not sell their hardware at a loss but Nintendo doesn't, Lol. Microsoft and Sony rely a lot on 3rd party revenue or 3rd parties to sometimes push their consoles, Nintendo on the other-hand, not so much.

Sony will be fine though, even if Microsoft acquires another major publisher (but there's no reason to believe they are right now, quite the opposite, the more reputable Xbox insider has said they're focusing on mid sized studios again like the 2018 - 2019 batch) but yeah, Sony's brand power is amazing, they have a large stable of 1st party IPs already with big selling power, there's still dozens of publishers and major multiplatform titles.

Don't really think any company has a reason to worry so far, they're all focused on their own thing and seem to all be doing well.

One guy takes on entire thread.

Any point in even keeping this open, this isn't going anywhere, the source for the original rumour is weak, more reliable insiders say the opposite (Xbox is focusing on small - mid sized studios again), we've not been discussing the source for a long time. Only reason I've kept it open as long as it has is cause VGChartz is dead lately but Idk where the fun is in talking to a brick wall.

Lol. It's unlikely to be for something said to me, I rarely ban folk for stuff they say to me if they're in a debate with me.

Unless his name is Kirby!