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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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The Xbox this article talks about is much, much broader than the console. Xbox is the name of the division of Microsoft responsible for games. If Xbox dies, so do Bethesda, Activision, Blizzard, and World's Edge. We lose Elder Scrolls and Fallout, Call of Duty, Halo, and all three of the top real time strategy franchises: Warcraft, Starcraft, and Age of Empires.
I'll be honest, I don't really care about 99% of what Xbox does and it could go away in a heartbeat and I wouldn't care. But that last 1% would be devastating. Age of Empires 2 & 4 and Age of Mythology are my top 3 played games of the last decade. In fact, aoe1, 2, 3, 4, and aom collectively make up 9 of my top 20 games by playtime on Steam, thanks to various rereleases. I would be gutted if I'm that went away.
Plus, there's the wider impact. Half those mergers never should have been allowed, but now that they have happened, the amount of game devs who would lose their jobs if Xbox died would be devastating. That's all their lives impacted. Many would probably have to leave the industry entirely and hope they can find work elsewhere. Others would be in a precarious position with a glut of workers making it easier for new employers to exploit them.
There have been layoffs across the board and most of the talent that made previous games great is already gone so i don't have much hope for future games under Microslop because they will most likely be AI slop.
IMO every dev/publisher acquired by MS was already tainted and on its way out. Most of the people responsible for the great games you associate with those companies are long gone. Let them die.
I'll assume you mean the more recent acquisitions, not ones from back in the day like Ensemble Studios. Which admittedly they shut down, but the games that they made live on, published by World's Edge, and are better than ever.
But yeah, with the exception of World's Edge, it's hard to disagree. Blizzard in particular was probably so tainted before that being bought out can only have helped them. At least under Microsoft's ownership there haven't been any sexual abuse scandals. Bethesda it's hard to say. They certainly haven't done anything great since Microsoft bought them. But I'll hold off judgment until like 12 months after the next mainline Elder Scrolls game comes out...or the 12 year anniversary of the announcement/teaser, if it still isn't out by then. Activision...I don't even know what they do, outside of CoD.
Yes, I was meaning the companies from the most recent aggressive acquisition period. Some of the older acquisitions weren't totally wasted as you mentioned, though it is hard to say they were not worse off than if they had been able to succeed on their own. I was really bummed about Obsidian being gobbled up.