I don’t think it’s gonna happen. mainly because what makes the Force so powerful is all the things you can do with 64 pads besides just playing sounds & what makes the the MPC special is it’s big 16 pads. You can’t really have both.
The Force with its clip based sequencer does a decent job emulating the MPC sequencer, but many MPC long-time users still may prefer the MPC tedious way of doing things: https://www.elektronauts.com/t/akai-force/70106/2797
The force also has a more advance macro system that most MPC users either don’t about are seem to care from the lack of them asking for it on MPC sties: All The Cool Video’s I Could Find On The Force Macros: Don’t Sleep On The Power Of The Macros!
https://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=216161
So if they do merge I hope it gets the Force macros, but also some of the MPCs song mode features or at least add scene follower like the Force hacked OS called the MockbaMod: AKAI Force - #2781 by Poetic-Noise
I think the Force was a test project to offer an alternative workflow to see how many MPC users would like & later they would decide if merging them would make $en$e. I think they rather keep them as 2 different platforms so they can each do what they do best. Luckily most features can be shared without messing up each unique workflow style. Somethings can’t & its better to give customers options that specialized for their needs. I don’t know another company that has so many different models running the same OS, So to Akai what’s 1 extra device that run a slightly different OS if people are willing to buy it.