| This is the industry in general though, and why you see so many historical AAA studios go bankrupt after one bad game. The problem was that if you kept a studio small and lean, you were often at the mercy of predatory publishers who controlled the distribution channels (pre-network, physical media). So most studios tried to vertically and horizontally integrate into conglomerates: own their own publishing + have a diversified enough pipeline of games that one flop wouldn't take down the entire works. Unfortunately, that works at Activision (pre-Blizzard) and EA (00s) scale, but not Microsoft scale (where you essentially own a large chunk of all studios). This was a reckoning long in coming, as MS XBOX leadership, after some initially brilliant ideas, got high on their own supply and forgot they couldn't endlessly acquire more studio with their parents' cash. Tbh, they probably should have lured away one of Berkshire Hathaway's acquisition people and put them in a go / no-go decision role. It's the acquisition price, product, and financials that make something a good deal or not, but XBOX spent the last 10 years valuing potential acquisitions on intangibles (synergy, strategy, if we don't they will, etc). |