All of these consolidations of power are nuts. Feels like we need another round of trust busting in the next 10/20 years to help introduce real competition back into the markets.
Normally I would 100% agree, but the barrier for entry is so low that I'm not sure that consolidation in the video game market. There are plenty of issues which plague the video game market (software ownership rights, anti-competitive exclusivity deals, workforce abuse, literal gambling for children, pre-order "culture", etc), but I don't think this is one of them.
That said, I don't know if this is necessarily a good thing either. Strictly as a video game publisher, Microsoft has been doing pretty well for themselves over the last five years. They've definitely stood out as one of the more consumer-friendly publishers, but the market is full of notoriously bad publishers (Bethesda included) so being one of the better ones isn't very praiseworthy.
Microsoft also has their own jaded publishing history which includes some pretty bad moves at the end of the 360 generation and beginning of the Xbox One generation. The Kinect was a very high-profile failure. The original Xbox One was met with a strong backlash for lacking support for physical media. They played a significant role in the integration of "microtransactions" into full priced video games. Although they have done many great things over the last few years, I'm still weary of them as a publisher.
I think the jury is still out on whether this is a net positive for the video game market, but it will definitely make the upcoming console generation very interesting.
I think you're right from a "person looking to play a good video game" perspective but what's easily overlooked is the data to be gained and who gains that data.
Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon have unprecedented insight into user behavior and that is power, and that continues to consolidate.
They are accumulating data through many other devices and applications from a wider user group, I doubt gaming makes all that much of difference.
Barring MS none of the others actually have any presence in gaming
FB and Google efforts in engaging the gaming community has not scaled. Stadia or Oculus is not mainstream yet.
Amazon has even smaller presence with just some products on AWS.
Apple is just interested in taking their 30% cut and done nothing really in this space.
For now I think we'll wait and see; while the big companies slowly poison the well with microtransactions and live services, ruining games to push for sales, the indie market is massive, turning single developers pottering around in their proverbial basements into millionaires and spawning franchises left and right.
I mean Minecraft started off like that. Terraria is following behind it. Among Us, a $4 game on Steam released in 2018, suddenly became a meme and huge out of nowhere. Fall Guys, made by a small studio that mainly did web, Flash, Facebook and mobile games for most of their existence, came out of left field and created the top game of last month, which (if played right) is an instant brand because of their simple yet infinitely customizable cute characters.
There is still real competition because the big publishers cannot stop the small developers.
I think the real worry would be Steam (Valve) being acquired. Without such a ubiquitous and relatively open platform for distribution, indie devs would have a much harder time making any money.
