TBH it seems like the Halo teams have been trying to copy COD for a while (going as far as adding COD mechanics to the Halo:CE remake).

If they're under the same roof, my optimistic hope is that they'll try to focus on how to differentiate the IPs. But realistically we'll probably just end up with even more micro transactions

Eh, a lot of these studios have not performed well at all over the last 10-15 years. It seems like Phil Spencer was the type of boss that let these teams run wild and be creative, and all he got back was a bunch of late, over budget, underwhelming games.

Halo Infinite from 343/Halo Studios stands out in particular. They thought that game was ready to ship in late 2020 and showed it off on their summer showcase, where it triggered such an intense backlash they delayed the game for a year and it still came out with minimal content.

Halo and Rare going under Activision could be a good thing. But if you want to be cynical, they are moving all of these studios out of "Microsoft Gaming Studios" and into Activision, Bethesda, King, etc. to make it easier to sell each of those individually or spin off the whole thing altogether.

What is there to sacrifice? There hasn’t been a new Halo game since 2010. Just fan fiction, remakes & anthologies.

“For Halo, our goal is clear: make the greatest Halo game ever, worthy of its universe and legacy, while staying true to what made players love it in the first place,”

Are those opposing goals? Why say "while" as if they are in competition with each other?

I thought Infinite was quite fun but you could tell they cut a lot of content.

The astonishing thing with the Halo franchise is that 343 kept being given chances to go again, and again, when it clearly just wasn't working. By the time they get round to releasing a great new Halo people that loved the original will be taking out their pensions.

It cannot be understated the extent to which the console industry, including third party publishers and devs, needs Sony and Microsoft to both stay competitive. In that light the drastic moves being done at MS are long overdue, but maybe not sufficient. It's also an open question if consoles (outside of the Nintendo universe, which is a very different audience) have a future at all.

MS as a company remains perpetually in reset mode.

Their only goal is to be more profitable.

Obsidian became a part of Bethesda, huh?

The Fallout TV show probably had to be the final straw for how much independence Bethesda gets to have. Boy, to have been a fly on the wall in that conference room.

"The TV show is doing gangbusters and you're telling me you don't have any F*CKING RELEASES IN THE CAN?!?! Stick Starfield, Todd, you're done with your 'art'."

I really don't understand the point of Xbox.

Nintendo has the worst hardware, but consistently delivers a small number of really great games you can't play anywhere else. Any game you can play on a Xbox you could also play on a real PC and have a vastly better experience and far more utility. Xbox is just a shitty, ad infested, crippled gaming PC. Playstation is heading in that direction as they lose more exclusives, but at least their hardware is better.

Microsoft might as well give up and just sell a bunch of low-mid range gaming PCs in console shaped cases, running windows, ship them with controllers and just brand them as Xboxes. At least for now. Eventually Microsoft wants games as a service, where you buy a dumb terminal/cheap thin client and they stream games you never actually own to your screen.