Semioconductors, Media consolidation. The Gaming Industry next?

In the recent years we have seen massive consolidation of the semiconductor industry, as we have seen companies spend 10s of billions buying another company, this follows the trend of having an integrated solution in chips. Another example of increasing consolidation is Disney and Fox merging together to compete against Netflix and the attempt from Comcast to get Time Warner which has HBO etc. Which leads me my next point.

With the increasing rise of cost in developing games these days and the rise of GaaS, it's very unsustainable and risky to develop games these days that return in an investment. With Game as a Service, companies like Microsoft can use Netflix-like systems to get subscribers.

So what if a company like Microsoft did buy a massive publisher like EA and aggressively buyouts gaming publishers for their Game Pass ecosystem, what if this leads to a consolidation of the gaming industry where we only have publishers like Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. Sony and Nintendo can't afford to buy a company at the moment, since a larger number of major publishers are in the 10-20s billions.

Could we see the collapse of ecosystems in future generations?

I don't think game development is costing more than 10 years ago. Maybe more but not to any noteworthy degree. If you only want to make state of the art realistic games that push hardware with celebrity voice actors it will be very expensive yes and that has always been an expensive type of game to make. EA is a good example of a publisher going overboard like that.

But they are selling the sob story hard. "We don't want to use psychological warfare to draw money from people but we have to, because it's all so expensive now." Why is digital so expensive for consumers? "Retailers. We can't help it. We're on your side, honestly. But the elevated prices don't help us either. Trust us it's much more expensive than that."

Yeah. Thing is they will always want more money (and mergers will tend to happen) and there is very little to stop it.

If there would only be Microsoft and Activision, I believe we'd see a basically new industry emerge from indies (normal games and not MTX games) that people would flock to. Or realistically I don't think we can ever get to that point because indies are a thing.

I think this narrative should die that just because MS has tons of money they can buy any game company. They have money but not all of it is for games and to take into account that MS is feeling pressure on it divisions that are the most profitable will actually divert resources to Xbox.

Games as a service will end up the same place as loot boxes

With the companies pushing it have only shit to play and more and more new indie studios and the few remaining quality developers with money crushing them

You make a good point. I think most publishers are going overboard with production costs, especially hiring celebrty talent. I mean is it necessary?

Games as a service is just another step on the road to consoles becoming streaming boxes, it's inevitable.

@daniel_su123: Its At&t wanting to buy Time Warner not Comcast. Comcast bought NBC.