The thing is a shareholder wouldn't base his thoughts on Game Pass cause it's diluded in "Xbox Services and content" (or whaterver they call it), Phil saying it's around 10-15% of its revenue, and we now that Xbox Serivces and content is profitable on its own (as they had to disclose it during the Epic vs Apple case - but not the real amount).

So is it profitable on its own ? I guess paying the licencing fees to have the games on GP for a specific amount of time vs subscriptions income, the balance should be + at the end.

I think you have a misconception on how big corporations like MS work.  Acquisition money is not money that just goes back to the Xbox division.  Acquisition money goes back to actually doing more acquisition.  The Gaming division for MS has a budget, that does not change whether this deal lands or fails.  MS as a company isn't going to expand the gaming division budget by the amount they were willing to use that 70b to purchase ABK.  I see gamers make this statement alot but from someone who has worked for multiple huge corporations that is not how the money works.

If the gaming division is not already doing your bullet points, no matter how this deal land or fail, nothing will change that because the gaming division has its budget for the year, milestones they need to reach, sales projections you name it.  That 70b goes back into MS acquisition pool of money to purchase another company.  It may be gaming related but with a huge business like MS, it could be anything.

I will also say that MS will not invest in any 3rd party exclusives.  That ship sailed with the Tomb Raider deal.  Instead MS will invest in day one 3rd party deals on GP as they feel that give better value.  You only have to look at the last 5 years of better to see that Phil has abandon that strategy.

So your ideal that if this deal gets block MS changes the course of what they are already doing and be more focus but that really is not going to be the case.  If the deal gets block MS will continue as they already have.  If they are not doing what is on your list they probably will continue to not do it and if they are its not like they are going to throw 70b at it because that money was never the gaming division money or budget.

However small the influence is, it's still illegal to make publicly false statement that may result in an influence in perceived stock value.

That's why they always remain vague. "Our revenue increased" from how much to how much ? 

The amount of stuff they're disclosing is getting smaller and smaller. They used to disclose Game Pass subscribers numbers at every quarter report, then they stopped early 2021, and it's been a year since we got the latest figures. "There is growth" technically correct if you have +1 user in total at the end.

And we're focused on Xbox division, but MS is way larger, the shareholders look first at the overall, and they're profitable (with actual figures they actually share every quarter). That's what matters at the end.

Well exactly but there's still is caveat to this. the $69B deal is proving 2 main things (at least it's reasonable to assume both)

1. MS has a lot of faith in the Xbox division at the moment almost entirely due to GamePass 

2. They want to bolster GamePass library swiftly.

As of now this faith and goal as expressed itself mostly through acquisition and huge one at that. if this route is somehow blocked it's not unreasonable to think this faith will express differently unless MS ambition for Gamepass and Xbox are suddenly tempered.

And yes this transaction is made by MS but was suggested by Xbox I think, so it may not be unreasonable to assume Xbox is well listened within MS and that suggestion would be acted upon (Yes Xbox would have to fight to secure every next investment for sure but the fight may not be that hard given the context).

I too find unlikely that MS will make hat deals again however 2nd party deals with 3rd party entity is quite common with MS and I believe they may expand on this front (though they may also expand on this even if the deal succeed).  

There isn't enough talented developers because studios are always severely understaffed. The pool of talented software engineers is endless, buy you will never know that if you don't hire them in first place 

The competition to get a entry position in a gaming studio is fierce and the wages are way bellow the median for software developers. Software development is less about hiring senior designers and more about educating junior developers. Currently the bulk of software development can be done with mixed teams of experienced and unexperienced programmers. 

If you don't have enough senior developers to make a AAAAAAAAAA game, start making smaller games with smaller development cycles. In smaller teams junior developers have much more room to experiment their creativity, unlike in bigger teams where they basically do factoring-like menial coding work, while the game designers are the one who actually put their minds to think how the game will play. 

Microsoft should have started releasing smaller games already. I don't know if they are only focused on big games, but it's not like you cannot have a mixed, Nintendo have several games developed by smaller teams. It's a good way to train your future senior designers and keep a consistent output of games.

I think it means the service is profitable.

Sometimes you guys try to play chess when Papa Phil just wants to play checkers.

The pool of talented software engineers is endless, buy you will never know that if you don't hire them in first place 

Every industry that need of software engineer is in need of more so would not say the pool is endless, far from it. Also up until the hiring freeze of last year, position were open at every of Xbox studios, so Xbox was actually hiring the most they could.

The competition to get a entry position in a gaming studio is fierce and the wages are way bellow the median for software developers. Software development is less about hiring senior designers and more about educating junior developers. Currently the bulk of software development can be done with mixed teams of experienced and unexperienced programmers. 

True

If you don't have enough senior developers to make a AAAAAAAAAA game, start making smaller games with smaller development cycles. In smaller teams junior developers have much more room to experiment their creativity, unlike in bigger teams where they basically do factoring-like menial coding work, while the game designers are the one who actually put their minds to think how the game will play. 

Yes but that's slows down your growth capacity significantly you won't open position you don't need and you'll not start project if you don't have close to enough staff. It's called growing pain and put a hard limit on your growth rate. A way to bypass this is to partner up with a third party for a project and to gradually replace your dependance on said third party by hiring more. Xbox is actually doing this by the way. 

Microsoft should have started releasing smaller games already. I don't know if they are only focused on big games, but it's not like you cannot have a mixed, Nintendo have several games developed by smaller teams. It's a good way to train your future senior designers and keep a consistent output of games.

Grounded, pentiment, Hi-fi rush... just a few example to show Xbox is already doing this as well.

Some statement are vague but the one on GamePass profitability was pretty clear.

Anyway I also whish the industry was more transparent but hey I'm not entitled to anything here so enjoy what I get and really don't mind the rest.