Good game development houses are rare, so grabbing a bunch of really talented people with industry experience to take up writing some (hopefully) top-quality games in the top-tier universes of Halo or Age is one of the better things MS can do.

I can't get a bead on whether you're saying this is good or bad. 

Personally, I think having a competent group of people to execute on a steady stream of new titles in both existing and new MS-owned IPs makes tremendous sense for the long-term viability of the platform.

As has been echoed throughout most of these forums, exclusive content is generally what drives people to one platform over another, so all three companies need in-house devs to make things happen.

What I'm saying is good. It's just that nothing Microsoft or Sony does in the business scheme really surprises me.If they want solid titles from within they need to swallow up the sea of third party devs. Imagine if Sony and MS took only the most competitive brands, what would be left in between?

I'm a big BT maniac who spent way too much time playing it :) Plus I'm already planning to buy arcade just it need to hit 75-80 euro on second hand market - after all LO looks tasty (but they killed half my reasons to get one with NG II and ToV annocments).

The third-party devs swimming around in the sea are really at risk.  It's only the EPICs and some others who have the consistent stream of income to make themselves long-term viable entities.

One bomb can hollow out all of their resources; if they aren't getting royalties from their previous games, enough royalties to keep the entire company afloat, then they dissolve.  I think of poor, startlingly creative Looking Glass Studios.  Their absence is a huge loss, at least to me in a 'they made some kick-ass stuff' sort of way.

So, while big companies are sometimes ham-fisted, they can help to ensure a longer-term survival of a studio.  In the best cases, studios like Bungie thrive and re-enter the waters better able to weather problems. 

However, and this is important to remember, game companies oftentimes tear themselves apart from within due to ego.  Ensemble has part of this in their story, and the head of Ensemble alluded to this in post-dissolution interviews. 

The Carmack-Romero feuds are another example. 

These guys are rock stars with rock star egos.  At some point it's not worth the drama or the cost.

In any case, if MS and Sony bought up all the most competitive brands... new ones would spring up, as they always do, in the hinterlands.  And once the scent of money was on the air, the twin eyes of Sauron would be looking down at them, offering millions.  And... we'd have some rich new rock stars we'd either love or hate a few years hence.

Oh, and hopefully some good new games.

There is a lot of misinformation in this thread, and I think a lot of it is intentional on the part of some members. Microsoft did close down two studios, but they also folded much of the staff from those studios into Microsoft Game Studios. Which basically means their existing development teams got larger. Further more it allowed for more floating development. Resources extended to first or third parties for key functions such as bug testing, play testing, and additional coding.

Microsoft never owned Bioware or Bizarre. In fact given what Electronic Arts paid for Bioware it was probably a safe move for Microsoft. Three quarters of a billion dollars could be used to much better use in the short term. With that kind of money Microsoft could front the costs on twenty extremely high end games. With that kind of money they could probably double all their existing staffs, or create half a dozen new internal studios.

Make no mistake Electronic Arts paid that price for Biowares Austin studio that is developing a new online Star Wars game. Even so if Microsoft feels a real pressing need to have such a game it is probably cheaper to develop from scratch at a margin of the price. Electonic Arts is gambling that they can usurp World of Warcraft, and thus have a huge money generator.

This is probably not a bad acquisition for the purposes of genre diversification. Yes Microsoft is doing well on a few fronts, but they need to sell on all fronts. I am just hopeful it is something with wide appeal. Rather then something that will appeal to just half a million people globally.

I think its fairly easy to say now that MGS is going to begin playing a much larger role in the development of Xbox titles now, and given the holy-crap-thats-amazing pedigree of the closed studios they took in the top devs of, they are going to be one helluva development studio.

At least, from the looks of things. I don't quite know WHAT Microsoft is gonna do. But I'll give you a glimpse into what we may be able to expect from the big M: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDKaMvAFzA

Rumored, of course.

You don't have a clue what you're talking about, and make it more and more evident every time this subject comes up in any thread.

Pause..

What?  No.  The majority of Ensemble Studios' staff left MGS to form three new independent studios - Robot Entertainment, Bonfire Studios, and Windstorm Studios.

You're not much better.  :P

First of all, a majority of the employees from Ensemble and a good bit of those from FASA left MGS completely, with the Ensemble employees forming the studios I mentioned above, and the heads of FASA forming Smith & Tinker, even going so far as to license the rights to their original creations (MechWarrior, Crimson Skies, and Shadowrun) back from Microsoft.

Also, EA didn't pay three quarters of a billion dollars for BioWare.  They paid that amount for both BioWare and Pandemic Studios, two development houses that accounted for over 800 employees spread across four studios.