Spending money on developing teams slowly over decades like Sony/Nintendo did vs. spending money getting established, game producing companies right now. It's still spending money, just speeds up the process greatly vs. the very slow way Nintendo and Sony did it.

When I said Sony could easily make a Bethesda level deal, I meant it.

This however would be impossible to counter. $69b is too much.

Nintendo and Sony both became the dominant player with their first home consoles and the software developed for them.

20 years later and MS is still playing paying catch up...

I misread your original reply but even then, a potential price hike is one of many concerns, the other being consolidation making gaming an extremely fragmented industry, like the entertainment industry where you need subscription services to play everything. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if all we were left with is F2P games, indies & some independent studio releases, while everything else is locked behind subscription services with no option to purchase. 

Microsoft OWNS Bethesda...

This is very simple math here you know, you are talking like buying Bethesda gave nothing to Microsoft in returns... 0 dollars, so they need to make profits to recoup that? 

By buying Bethesda, Microsoft "value" increased (you can argue about how much, it does not really matter tho, because again, this is not how you look/count that kind of stuff) and their profits (or even potential returns) should also increase by a certain amount... If you want to go with very simple numbers, I can do that for you... 

Let's say Microsoft valuation is: 100$... And Bethesda cost 2.5$... 
If Microsoft revenues are going to increase by 2.5%... That's it... (not only by selling Bethesda game but also for side revenues like getting more GP sub. etc..) They made a good deal and there is NO SUCH thing of "buy even" something lol This is the business of it that matters, this is not a videogame...

I get that this is a gamer forums but come on, this is basic stuff. Stop coming up with that crap about "buying even" or whatever. 

And the same goes for Activision/Blizzard/Kings... 

Hopefully that does happen, from my perspective. I don't need to own any video games if that means I spend more money. I like saving money.

That would be a terrible outcome for many.

You and many others might save money, but there's also a ton of people who don't have a lot of time to invest for video games, and there are significantly more who only buy a couple of games a year, so they would end up spending more if they had no choice but to subscribe to Game Pass. 

69 billion for some (tired) IPs is a lot of money. I don't think this is about future earning prospects.

Those tired IPs still make fortunes.

Yes, A-B generated 5.8 billion profit in 2020 but it is a volatile industry with high risks and these 69 billion today won't be recouped for at least 15 years. Reminder: Disney paid 4.8 billion for Star Wars.