[MBCook]

I have nothing against MS. I’ve had multiple models of Xbox, for example.

I support this because MS is already huge (Windows, Office, Xbox) and Activision/Blizzard is huge.

There is already way too much centralization. EA owns too much. Honestly there may be some Sony shouldn’t have been allowed to acquire (I don’t keep track on either side).

So MS + Activision is just too centralized for me. If the argument is “we need this to compete with EA” then we should break up EA.

[inetknght]

> I have nothing against MS.

I do. I've had Microsoft account hacked with no way of recovering it despite still owning the email associated with it. I continuously get email notifications from Microsoft stating that there's suspicious activity on the account but recovery is effectively impossible.

I won't buy anything at all that requires a Microsoft account to use.

[Godel_unicode]

Can you expand on how that’s possible? Don’t the reset emails break you back in…?

[inetknght]

> Can you expand on how that’s possible?

1. Opened a MSN.net account in early 00's. Fake name/birthday provided as is the norm for the day and only email validation was required at the time.

2. Opened a Skype account in early 00's. Fake name/birthday information provided as is the norm for the day and only email validation was required at the time.

3. Microsoft merged Skype and MSN.net

4. Bought a Surface Pro in early 10's and that required a Microsoft account. Hated it and returned it, but now there's a CC and name associated with the account.

5. Account was hacked in mid 10's. Lost access.

6. Recovery workflow now involves "verifying" questions and answers that were never a part of the sign-up workflow, and secondary workflow involves "verifying" fake name/birthday information that's long since forgotten, or verifying purchases and prices and CC numbers (which have since changed), or verification of email.

7. Verification of email isn't enough because it's not a second factor. Want more verification.

8. MS phone support refuses to help, and brick & mortar staff have no capability to recover accounts

[reportgunner]

I suppose that e-mail is not enough, they probably require a second factor like a phone number.

[RajT88]

Nor do I hate MS. I have a love-hate relationship with their stack (more on the love side), and of course I don't like their anti-competitive behavior. They've done some great stuff under Satya.

I like to describe them as a many-headed beast; Some are benevolent, others less so.

Open sourcing a lot of stuff has been amazing for the MS ecosystem. But then they pull the Hot Reload move.

Two steps forward, a half step back, seems like.

[Godel_unicode]

What’s wrong with Hot Reload? Didn’t they walk back the Visual Studio only bit?

[Hamuko]

>Honestly there may be some Sony shouldn’t have been allowed to acquire

Some people have been floating around the idea that Sony could respond by acquiring Square Enix. Not sure if that is actually fiancially viable, but I would much prefer Sony and Microsoft acquire smaller studios (think Playground Games, Bluepoint Games) and leave bigger players like Activision and Square Enix alone.

[MBCook]

Exactly. I don’t mind “elevating” small studios by acquiring them and giving them resources and capital.

But I don’t like just flat out consolidation of already large companies. I don’t see a benefit (to gamers) in that. Just investors/business people.

[account42]

Sqeenix already sold a number of their franchises and studios to Embracer recently.

[Rastonbury]

I don't know, MS does not have a a lot in games publishers/studio, but Xbox consoles is almost a duopoly with PS

[endominus]

The Nintendo Switch (114m) outsold the Xbox One (51m) , Series S, and Series X (12m together) combined. And both the Playstation and (especially) Xbox suffer in that most of their games are also available on PC (usually much more cheaply).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_video_game_console_genera...

[account42]

There is also Embracer who are not on as many people's radar as they should be considering just how many studies they have been gobbling up. I wish there was a good answer for stopping this ultra-capitalistic consolidization that is going on in the games industry - best we can do is buy from independents but those are often bought up once they get big enough.