They can not do it, not because they do not want to, but even the useless EU would oppose any other big acquisition. Make no mistake, if MS could buy EA and Take Two, they would. MS is a monopoly seeking entity, which tends to abondon markets that escape its grip. They are just not good when it comes to B2C.
Still, I expect them to buy a Sega sized publisher.
MS has proven to be unable to create IPs that sell...They are inferior to both Nintendo and Sony when it comes to nurturing their brand, marketing it, and making games for it. Their solution: Buy everything up to force players to transition.
Nah, it also has to be a cost benefit to it.
There is a case of having too much content, and it not helping you.
This year there has been, and will be, a number of excellent games released on Xbox Hogwarts, Starfield, HiFi Rush, Diablo 4, COD WM3, Forza MS, Lies of P, Resident Evil etc, and one of the complaints by Xbox gamers I know is that there is too many good games to play, and not enough time to play them.
If MS puts too much content into GP then they run the risk of not getting the engagement they want for them.
We all only have so much time to play, and we all have our game preferences. Already with the games being released, and the Xbox exclusives like Starfield and Forza coming up, I just can't see myself getting to other games that I also want to play.
MS know this. They would have data and analytics for everything. If they see a game they spent X on getting, but it was only getting Y amount of people playing the game, they won't want many more games like X for awhile.
This is why MS isn't just going to buy everything. They have enough shooters to supply the Shooter players on Xbox. Doom, Halo, Wolfenstien, Gears, COD, any more and they would just start to cannibalise each other. Each game would get less engagement time from each gamer. We are limited by the time we have.
MS knowing this will then want to bring more content from other genres that people who like those games will go to Xbox to play.
Currently Xbox doesn't cater to the Japanese type gamer very well. This is something they will invest in, so expect a few Japanese aquisitions like Platinum, Sega or Capcom.
The only other area MS doesn't have alot of is the third person adventure game. They could make purchases of say IO, Edios and Asobo to get these types of games.
The cries of MS buying everything for their exclusives is so overhyped.
The bit where you shitposted about MS not being as good as Sony or Nintendo, I won't reply to. I learnt my lesson Mods.