I think that it has 95% chances of being completed, and that 5% would be because some regulator wouldn't research enough the market data to see that MS is far of being a market leader of gaming or in any gaming platform or area even adding ABK on top, and that by removing CoD from PS wouldn't damage PS. Or that some regulator notices MS lied to them and they consider it's enough to stop the acquisition.
I think that independently of the acquisition being completed or not, this generation Xbox will continue losing market share and PS will continue increasing theirs, so MS will double down on their 3rd party side and will increase their number of games released on other consoles beyond deals they made before acquisition and then this or the next gen it would be their last one as 1st party.
I think that MS will continue their pattern of keeping away their focus on their own console hardware and that their console for the next gen may be just a HDMI dongle to run xCloud. Or maybe they release a last normal console, maybe even not manufactured by them but licensed like a Steam Machine.
The patience of some excutives or stakeholders with their (previously known as Xbox) gaming division could end and they could ask again to shut down Xbox or their gaming business, but recently they spent almost $100B investing on it so they'll give them many years to see if in the long term they turn these investments into a profit. But if over years it continues not being the case and Phil keeps burning dozens of Billions throwing them to the garbage bin I think they could kill the gaming divison.
I personally think that first they'll quit from making their own consoles, then they'll announce their VR device and VR metaverse as their new 'wait until' and 'MS made VR and PS Home before than Sony!' and after that they'll slowly reduce their focus on GP to end killing after 10 years or so of not being able to match Sony's game subs. Some years after that they'll kill GP and some years after that they'll kill their gaming divison selling it to someone and will focus instead on their PS Home VR metaverse stuff.
Phil would be fired for sure
Nah
I see them becoming a third-party publisher either way.
They already are a third party publisher. Guess who publishes the Minecraft games, Ghostwire Tokyo, Deathloop, Psychonauts 2, Quake Remastered, Ori etc in non Xbox consoles.
I'd say the question exacly would be is if they will stop being a 1st party and will become 3rd party only.
