Folks need to step back a bit. There's not really any credible intelligence in the business media that suggests that Microsoft are interested, it sounds like forum talk picked up by gaming websites. Of course Microsoft could easily afford it, so could Sony btw, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen.
Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment (the gaming division) is a subsidiary of WarnerMedia which is itself owned by AT&T. AT&T are reported (original report by CNBC) to be seeking a $4 billion sale of this division. The reason for this sale is the debt taken on from the TimeWarner acquisition and a need to reduce that given the current financial climate. The CNBC names Activision, EA, T2 and Ubisoft as being in discussions.
WBIE has 11 subsidiaries, some of which are multiple studios:
- Avalanche Software
- Monolith Productions
- NetherRealm Studios
- Portkey Games
- Rocksteady Studios
- TT Games
- WB Games Boston
- WB Games Montréal
- WB Games New York
- WB Games San Diego
- WB Games San Francisco
Disposing this makes sense for WB, these studios cost a lot to operate, consume capital and are not that profitable. If they can offload these studios they can instead milk their ip (WB owns DC) through licensing arrangements at far lower risk and working capital requirement. But just because it makes sense for WB doesn't mean it makes sense for potential buyers. WBIE is heavily dependent on licensed properties most of which WB doesn't own, so there's no guarantee they'd continue - and the ones they do own aren't up for sale. But major game studios have been moving away from a dependence on licensed properties.
From a Xbox/PlayStation perspective this acquisition would basically double the size of their first party studios (and bear in mind that Xbox has basically doubled already in the last couple of years) and that in itself would pretty transformative and there would be many management and logistical issues involved. If either party were to do this then they would really have to keep it as an independent multi-platform publisher or the economics of the deal would be fucked.
At $4 billion it's a big pill to swallow and the pool of potential buyers for such a huge acquisition is understandably small. I think they'll spend a couple of years not getting very far with this and then follow a far more logical course of action IMHO would be for AT&T to sell off the studios individually and gradually wind down WBIE. The pool of buyers for individual studios would be much larger and increase their chances of getting a good price.