You're literally saying this in a thread where Microsoft confirms yet again that Call of Duty will still be available on Playstation. About the same company that has pushed for less walls between platforms with cross-play/cross-progression initiatives, bringing/keeping first party and/or published titles on other platforms with Minecraft, Ori, and others, and have made their games library available on every possible platform that will welcome them.
Selling an IP they own on another platform is not charity, and it certainly isn't done for your convenience. Also just gonna just point out that Microsoft wasn't caring that much about "pushing for less walls between platforms with cross-play initiatives" until they found themselves at the end of a noose in the last generation.
Final Fantasy XIV is extremely profitable and given Xbox's acquisition of ABK, they could now be the de facto MMORPG console, but the reason why the game isn't on Xbox consoles yet is because they've denied Square the opportunity to release the game on their ecosystem without demanding the player pay the additional Xbox Live cost on top of the game's own subscription, which Sony never asked them to do, and Square wasn't willing to budge on. Game could've been there for years now, and perhaps if it had, the newer Final Fantasy games
wouldn't be Sony "exclusives", because Square would have had an established playerbase on that platform. Nowadays, yes, they've reversed that opinion, and that's a good thing, but that has nothing to do with my point at all. The moment it stops being profitable or useful for their image, they'll reverse it again, as did Sony, and as has Nintendo before.
I wanted to respond to this particular bit because people have a very selective memory when it comes to console manufacturers.
You can have an extremely monopolistic antagonistic takeover of an industry, while that company still providing perceived short or mid term benefits for those who opt in. It's pretty obvious that a business will at the very least
play the part. The world has a few shades of grey in it.
Let's not forget that Sony has done as much money-hatting as anyone, whether it be buying exclusive games, blocking content on other platforms, or straight up acquiring studios themselves. Bungie, Bluepoint, Nixxes, Housemarque, and Insomniac come to mind just over the last 3 years.
Comparing any of the studios Sony's acquired with ABK is more than a little silly. Please see at not only how much those
studios (emphasis on purpose here) cost, and how much money they were and are now making, versus ABK or
any of its IPs. You're comparing a guy buying a Toyota Camry to go to work, to a guy window-shopping a Porsche Panamera and still being loaded after the fact.
Microsoft is several times larger than Sony. Of course their acquisitions are going to be more costly, but that's exactly what I mean when I say they're undercutting the competition with their massive bank accounts.
And you seem to understand this, because you noted it right here:
Call of Duty being "free" with a customers Game Pass subscription is a huge deal and a massive win for the average Xbox customer, but Playstation customers will be able to buy the game for $70 just like they always have.
Unless you think Call of Duty games will suddenly be free to develop once ABK's acquisition concludes, then that is literally the definition of a market undercut, because games of that magnitude aren't developed at 15 bucks a pop. And so market undercuts, especially when done at a loss, are done with the specific intention to bleed the competition, which can't afford to provide the same kind of offer at all, so they either shift focus to a less profitable segment of the market (which can fuck them over), or they concede and try to compete and go bankrupt in the process.
This isn't a new thing, it's not a new strategy that the Xbox division just came up with. In fact it's not even the first time Microsoft has done this.
Sony failed to prove that this would be a substantial blow to their business, because they failed to show how doing this with Call of Duty specifically would have a significant effect on their storefront. But add all of ABK's IPs, on top of Game Pass itself, and you can clearly see how this adds up to a massive blow.
The part where it affects you, because I know a lot of people understand things better in those terms, is that
they will not operate Xbox at a loss forever, and at some point,
someone is going to have to be paying them to go back to the massive profits they envision given these investments and planned losses.
That someone is you, in case it isn't obvious! lol And the way that will be expressed is either in a significant price hike, a significant lower payout for games on the service, or a significant drop in quality of games being offered -- sometimes even all three. We've seen similar things with Netflix as well.
And if they have their way, at that time you won't have an alternative anymore. That is how the strategy works. It's a strategy older than gaming is, and MS has done this before with Windows.
I'm not saying MS is bleeding the competition
now. I'm saying these market decisions were done with that intention, and since neither Nintendo nor Sony have the funds to combat such a hostile takeover, this is effectively monopolistic.
If Sony starts doing the same shit, I'd say the same shit about them. My issue is people not seeing this happening in front of their eyes.