The two largest computing platform owners run app stores that control ~100% of all software distributed on their platform. There would be 0 concern if Microsoft owned the majority of the PC, digital, gaming (look at all these qualifiers) distribution.
Uhm, what are you talking about? You’re comparing apples to oranges.
What exactly do you think the reason would be that it would get blocked by regulators? And how is it apples vs oranges. iOS and Android are today’s dominant computing platforms.
Because Microsoft would have too much of control over pc market distribution. IPhone doesn’t control majority of the market, and on Android you have many different stores, you’re not forced to use play store. That’s the difference.
Microsoft had serious problems with anti thrust issues in the past, to the point they were on the verge of being forced to split, so they aren’t going to put themselves in such a situation again. It wouldn’t pass approval from CEO and CFO in the first place because of aforementioned reasons.
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I don’t think anyone would bat an eye based on the fact that their competitors own nearly 100% of the distribution in their ecosystem. If you look at stuff that has actually been blocked, i have a really hard time thinking something like this would be even close to their radar.
We’ll have to agree to disagree though.
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Seems like People Can Fly are working on two new unannounced games. One to be published by Square Enix and the other to be published by Take Two Interactive. I would say that this lowers the probability of Microsoft acquiring People Can Fly.
They’re going public in 2 weeks. I think this ship has sailed.
I would’ve liked them but Coalition covers similar ground and I could see MS giving Gears some rest after the story ends.
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Oh, okay. I didn’t know this. I’m really hyped for Outriders so we’ll see what their other two games are.
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The Square Enix Europe studios make the most sense of anything outside of Asobo imo. I used to think that belonged to Sega and still think there’s a wonderful fit there, but this is much more manageable and gives them an iconic franchise is tomb raider, a great Sci fi RPG in Deus Ex and Life is Strange is a perfect series for gamepass. It extends their European presence abs allows those teams to collab more.
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How do people know / find out this stuff? I genuinely have always wondered how people know which companies or developers are publicly traded or not…
Edit: nvm then I guess.
Codemasters will tie the knot with Take-Two next year after going public in 2018, so it’s not a death knell for People Can Fly’s chances. I would expect Square Enix or Take-Two to make a move on them first, though.
I don’t think MS is going to buy PCF or others public company now
They should focus on mid size studio and expand them like they did with their first 8 buys
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PCF, Bloober, and CDPR all being public probably means we can cross them off the list.
Asobo being on a 10 year contract may mean we don’t see an acquisition of them for a while, unless someone else makes an offer on them, in which case I imagine Microsoft has a right of first refusal clause in their contract.
The list of available studios is starting to look kind of small…
I think they’re done with big/huge acquisitions, at least for now. I could imagine smaller acquisitions to patch some missing genres, studios like Playful or Toys for Bob for example, to work on family friendly games (Banjo?).
I don’t think Bloober is off the list since there’s literally like 8-12 companies bidding on them now. We have no confirmation that MS is or isn’t one them, but it was mentioned a few US companies were involved too.
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Playful I can see, sure. Toys for Bob, however, is owned by Activision.
Oh right ! Next Level Games would be cool but they seem to be working with Nintendo now.
Xbox buying Respawn confirmed!
/s
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Careful there bud, some might miss the /s 
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Titanfall 3 confirmed. 
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