How on earth is MS the “least bad” in the wake of this massive anti-competitive practice of just buying up studios?
Seeing the reactions on Reddit or Twitter really show how either young or ignorant the average video game commenter is on how the industry works. just instant gratification at any cost, and if it's denied it's war. Just look at how ballistic they went for needing an extra account for Helldivers, then read up on the news for these layoffs for a game they loved and see the slight murmur in comparison.
HN has some of that too, but there's at least some professionals here that will sympathize with the developers.
Nintendo sends a ton of C&D letters to smaller developers, and are pretty anti-emulation. Games never go on sale. Remakes are expensive ($60 for Super Mario RPG for example).
Sony just had the whole "You need a PSN account to play a PC game" thing. But also, you can't create a PSN account in some countries, so sorry you can't play the PC game you bought anymore. They ended up walking it back though. You also need to pay to play online, which is a thing on xbox as well. But I think that's usually drowned out by the "PC Gamers" who don't need to pay for something like that.
But as with any shitty corporation like MS, it's not charity. It's an investment to distract everyone from the fact that they're a shitty corporation. And it works apparently!