Gaming

All of what you said is true, but usually consolidation results in a net negative overall. It's why we (at least used to) have anti-trust laws. Companies - regardless of industry - tend to be monopolistic when they can get away with it.

However, I will say that your point about "reviving dormant IPs" is just another way of framing (albeit much more charitably) what I described previously. Capitalizing on well-known or well-regarded IPs with built-in large fan bases who will likely buy based on name recognition rather than what its Metascore is or how well it runs according to technical tests run by Digital Foundry.

Also, I agree with you that as long as Sony and Nintendo exist in the console space, the industry can probably endure. That sort of consolidation would probably result in some really bad shit. Price gouging, no more owning games - just licensing with shaky terms that they can change at any time, required subscriptions, upgrades, more egregious micro-transactions... ugh... as long as there are major competitors, they will do things like this every time one of the other one makes a greed-driven decision that pisses off the consumers.

I just wish we had the number of big game companies we had in the 90s and 2000s. There used to be dozens of pretty big name independently owned game dev studios in the city where I am, and now - among those still even open - I can't think of a single one still independently owned. The only 2 big ones I know of now in the area are subsidiaries of 2 major giant companies.