Not sure I agree with the exact phrasing here, but I agree with the underlying point that this money could have been spent much better (as is often the case with acquisitions) if the goal was to produce more or better games for the consumer.

A publisher changing ownership is not gonna contribute that much to what that publisher can actually do, there's certainly hope MS can improve how things are run at AB, but it's not like they will just magically be able to increase their output because someone else is keeping the lights on. Xbox's 1st party output will look more impressive once you slap their logo on AB games, and there will be more content on Game Pass to show for it, but at the end of the day we won't really see more games produced as a whole, which we could have if they had grown their existing studios instead.

Mostly small studio's prefer from being bought, because there is more jobsecurity and they enjoy the massive funds that publishers or platform holders have in general. However for big publishers these are rarely an issue, so assise from the shareholders and with luck some employees the quality of games produced and quantity won't improve. They might even decrease due to more management layers and more overhead. The thing with growing studios however is that there simply isn't enough talent available to actually make new massive studio's quickly.

Bolded which is why when Phil Spencer created the studio the Initiative ground up it pretty much had no talent apart from Gallagher Microsoft needed alot of help from 3rd party Crystal Dynamics even though Microsoft was hiring some devs like from God of war but games need more than that Microsoft found out this slow hiring and ground up studio making is taking extrmely long so they did the most power move they had to buy Activision.

As long as it brings added value to GamePass, that is all that really matters.

Don't "and" me bro! I mentioned the simple fact that the vast majority of gamers (Playstation as well as Nintendo and PC players) aren't into subscription services, you used the PS+ subscriber base as a counter argument, to which I replied that they (40%~ of the active Playstation playerbase) are subscribing because it's required for online multiplayer, and not necessarily because they like what the service has to offer. The service's quality and content just soften the blow of being forced to pay for online MP.

I didn't mean Game Pass is the only reason, but it's the reason that is most fair and understandable.

It is strange that he doesn't understand (or pretends not to understand, idk) why most Xbox/Game Pass fans are for it. But if we're being honest here, a lot of Xbox folks are just happy their favorite company is acquiring massive publishers and deluding themselves into thinking it's a proportional response to Sony's exclusivity deals, as though exclusives never existed before PS4 or Sony. Microsoft is now claiming inability to compete with Sony and used it as justification to spend the obscene sums of money (which they made by overcharging consumers via other divisions where they reign supreme lol). I have no reason to believe that their game division is any different from sister divisions, because it's the same fucking company! The nice guy facade will fade at one point, and the odds are the consumer will shut up and eat it up because they can't miss out on Zenimax/Bethesda + Activision Blizzard + Mojang content which are now 100% controlled by a single 2 Trillion dollar corporation.

As much as I hate major acquisitions like Zenimax, AB, and even Bungie... I'm actually glad MS did what they did in the sense that it'll force Sony to step up their game, quit relying on CoD, rely less on 3rd parties, and do what they do best: cultivating studios that start reasonably small, establishing strong 2nd party relations, and hopefully diversifying their lineup. On the other hand, I'm not happy about the mountains of money that are being wasted on fat executives, and the kind of "counter acquisitions" it'll spawn. Many Xbox fans surmised that Bungie's acquisition was Sony's "desperate response" to MS acquiring Zenimax.

In the end of the day: acquisitions = corporations burning BILLIONS only for their platform to effectively get LESS games "But it's okay because these multiplats are now console exclusives that make me feel important :D"

Interesting take, the problem is this is only the starting point for Microsoft not the end point. They will continue buying until they are the biggest fish in the pond and can control the entire market. They have a near infinite amount of cash on hand to begin with. Anyways I wonder which company is next. With the excuse due to less sales on competing platforms we still have a lower revenu so we need to buy more publishers.

I don't worry about things which don't make sense.

Why are you so concerned with the reaction of Xbox fans? They either don't care, are excited or would rather Xbox have acquired someone else. It feels like you're trying to force a feeling onto them, that they should be critical and angry. Let them feel how they want.

Would argue that they have already stepped it up or are in the process of stepping it up. Look at what Microsoft Studios are currently working on from a genre perspective.

• 343 Industries - FPS (Sci-Fi).
• The Coalition - TPS and recently TBS.
• Compulsion Games - Unknown but it is reportedly a "Dark Fantasy Story-Driven Single Player Game", and their last release was an Action-Adventure Survival Horror
• Double Fine - Unknown but they don't tend to stick to one genre for very long, their last game was a Platformer.
• The Initiative - Action-Adventure FPS.
• InXile - Unknown but it is reportedly a Steampunk RPG (it is at minimum an RPG) and their last release was an Isometric Turned Based RPG.
• Mojang - Real Time Action Strategy.
• Ninja Theory - Action Adventure and a Psychological Horror Game.
• Obsidian - Two RPGs which are both very different, one is a Space Sci-Fi RPG and the other is a sort of Medieval Fantasy RPG and a Narrative Adventure RPG. They also just released a Survival Game.
• Playground Games - Racer and Fantasy RPG.
• Rare - Everwild is listed as Adventure.
• Turn 10 - Racer.
• Undead Labs - Survival Horror.
• World's Edge - Unknown but they are mostly an RTS studio.
• Xbox Publishing - TBS & Action Adventure & Whatever Kojima's title is which is reportedly to be Horror. They're also rumoured to be working on two more ARPGs and a Side-Scrolling Brawler.
• Arkane - Austin is doing an FPS. Don't know what Lyon is doing after Deathloop.
• Bethesda - Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Apocalyptic RPGs.
• ID Software - Likely FPS.
• MachineGames - Action-Adventure.
• Tango Gameworks - Unknown but their last title was an Action-Adventure Horror.
• Zenimax Online - MMO's.

Add on Activision-Blizzard who are currently working on Survival, FPS, Platformers, ARPGs and a rumoured Brawler.

So, they have FPS, TPS, Action Adventure, Survival, Platformer, RPGs, TBS, RTS, Horror, Racer, Brawler, Simulation, etc. All in development or very recently released. There aren't many genres that Xbox isn't attempting to cover right now, aside from the obvious gap in JRPGs and other typically Japanese genres like Visual Novels.

We'll get both, don't worry. The only thing that has been focused on remaining multiplatform is CoD. I don't expect that to go exclusive, but I also don't care. They will have enough exclusives across Xbox Game Studios, Zenimax and Activision-Blizzard New IPs. CoD being on Game Pass is still a big benefit for Xbox owners.

This doesn't really make any sense, at all. Microsoft makes about $60bn+ in profits every year. They are in no rush to make back that money, that money which was just money sitting in a bank doing nothing except accumulating interest, it was an all-cash transaction and they have $100bn in cash sitting in a bank and it's during a period were having cash sitting in a bank doing nothing isn't really ideal due to inflation.

What Microsoft uses for acquisitions is entirely different to what they use to fund divisions. Xbox Game Studios and Zenimax will have no trouble receiving investment from Microsoft to create more content, especially not Activision-Blizzard who are one of the most profitable 3rd party publishers. Also, worth mentions that Xbox Game Studios, Zenimax and Activision-Blizzard are separate divisions all under Microsoft Gaming of which Phil is CEO.

Why would Zenimax and Activision Blizzard who were profitable prior and managed to fund themselves, take away from funding for Xbox Game Studios, it isn't like Microsoft is buying failing companies massively haemorrhaging money. You don't make moves like making Phil the 3rd only CEO in Microsoft (behind Satya and Linkedin CEO) only to cut funding months later.

I don't have much desire or reason to worry about the financials of a multi-trillion-dollar company. Like everything in life, it's a major investment, if it fails then it fails, if it succeeds then awesome, it isn't my job to think about how to make it work for them, I'll just enjoy the content in the meantime.

We're getting an even stronger first party line-up, a bunch of exclusives and tons of content for Game Pass so I'm happy.

They're doing the 2nd and 3rd.

Seem to have given up on the 1st, likely because it takes too long.

Xbox Game Studios (and now Zenimax) have had huge growth since coming under Xbox, until the hiring freeze hit (which has hit multiple companies) they were hiring hundreds of employees across XGS/Zenimax.

• 343 Industries, The Coalition were already quite large but still growing.
• Double Fine is still relatively the same at around 80, but Tim made clear in interviews that he wants to remain smallish.
• Compulsion Games has grown from 40 employees to 91 since being acquired by Microsoft and moved into a new larger studio which can accommodate over 120.
• InXile had a 2nd studio opened since joining Microsoft (quite a large one) because their next title is AAA and they're now over 100 employees.
• Mojang grows at a ridiculous rate, not much else to say about them, they've over 900 employees now.
• Ninja Theory is now over 100 (140 last report) and recently moved into a new larger studio.
• Obsidian is rapidly expanding for multiple projects and AAA development with Avowed, they're nearing 300 employees now.
• Playground opened a 2nd studio entirely dedicated to Fable and have almost doubled in size.
• Rare has near 300 employees now and growing.
• Turn 10 has had a decent amount of growth.
• Undead Labs is moving to AAA development and recently opened two extra studios, one in Florida and one in Illinois.
• World's Edge/The Initiative are relatively stagnant due to co-development.
• Xbox's Publishing team have gone from around 90 to 130+ and now expanding in Japan.

Across the years in total Xbox Game Studios has added hundreds of extra employees whilst having no layoffs, as you can also see, multiple studios are moving to AAA production and multiple have opened new studios to assist themselves in that venture.

As for "working with other developers" that is the role of Xbox Game Studios Publishing and they're actively working with.

• IO interactive 
• Avalanche Studios
• Oxide Games
• Brass Lion Entertainment
• Stoic Studio
• Kojima Productions
• Asobo Studio

Those are what we know about, there are certainly more.

Brass Lion is a brand-new studio. They also recently released As Dusk Falls from another brand-new studio.

They're almost certainly going to acquire some more smaller studios too after ABK.

This is without getting into spinoffs, for example, Minecraft Legends by Blackbird Interactive.

So far absolutely no layoffs have happened, quite the opposite, mass growth has happened.

So far, very few senior employees have left, the Microsoft back during Rare is different to the Microsoft now which keeps their nose out of studios business and lets them make what they want. There's been multiple cases of the recently acquired Xbox studios speaking positively about Xbox's new approach and it being a contributing reason as to why they sold.

I think Microsoft has learnt that shoving their noses in constantly causes valuable talent to leave and the talent is more important than the IP.

Brian Fargo is on record as saying he was planning on retiring but put off his retirement due to Xbox acquiring them. He (like a lot of smaller independent developers) was seemingly tired of having to constantly go around pitching and securing deals instead of actually making games, Schafer spoke about this too. Now they don't have to constantly worry about securing finances and deals and can just make the game.

I don't think acquiring is inherently a bad thing, it depends on the situation.

Even in studios which were built instead of acquired, talent can leave, people can eventually retire. It isn't automatically a bad thing though, folk can have dozens of possible reasons for leaving, as long as the studio is a good place to work and has a good structure then it has a good chance of still working out. If it's a mass departure, then it implies there's issues with the studio as a whole or leadership but if it's just like, Todd Howard decides to retire, I wouldn't be panicking, I'd trust him to know his own studio enough to pick a suitable replacement.

The mixing of different IPs to create new ones is what I find intriguing. An endless amount of new First Party exclusives can be Frankensteined out of all those developer and publisher talent over the next century. This is indicating a direction to an increase in first-party exclusives not less.