> Microsoft’s gaming division

Isn’t that the point? Why can something as large as MS have a “division” that can go into mergers and acquisitions as if they were a separate entity?

> There are stills lots of other large publishers

…goes on to name 5.

> They are definitely not “buying all their competit

Sure, you can be as pedantic as you want and jump through hoops to come to that rationalization.

The gaming industry has been in consolidation mode for years, mostly due to the up-front investment required to produce AAA games. All the large players are buying the smaller ones, it's not just Microsoft.

And I guess you can question my use of the subjective word "lots", my fault. I still think there are _enough_ large publishers around in the gaming industry that you can't really start throwing around terms like "monopoly" or "anti-trust" etc...

I was mostly just pointing out that the original comment was factually inaccurate by saying MS were buying up "all their competitors".

I'm not trying to rationalize or "jump through hoops" here. We're all just debating and guessing, having a conversation..

If you somehow accidentally assigned me to the opposite 'side' from the one you appear to be on, let me gently correct you.. I don't care enough about this to be picking sides.

> Why can something as large as MS have a “division” that can go into mergers and acquisitions as if they were a separate entity?

Especially when Microsoft is using the rest of Microsoft to subsidize said "division"

Valve/Steam would be the biggest competitor on desktop, with nearly 30 million active users.

>>Tencent, Epic,

You said Tencent twice ;)

Tim Sweeney maintains more than 50% ownership of Epic.

Smaller than Sony or smaller than Playstation? Sony does a lot more than just vidya

I'll let you do your own research.

Fair enough. Looks like it was Sony Interactive Entertainment