It’s not clear what happened with the Sega acquisition and whether Nadella ultimately approved talks. But in a Microsoft internal April 2021 merger review document, Sega was still listed as a key target. Microsoft had identified key areas for acquisitions in PC, mobile, and console across different markets, and Sega, Bungie, Zynga, and IO Interactive were part of a number of companies Microsoft was seriously looking at acquiring.
This is Microsoft’s playbook. It really is surprising it took them this long to start their financial weight around though. That said I hope regulators start standing up to these trillion dollar corporations. Start by blocking the Activision-blizzard acquisition