MS crossed the line with this one. Heck, they leaped over it, Olympic record style.
MS isn't buying non Western devs/pubs for whatever reason, so it's kinda unlikely that SNY has to worry too much about losing those types of franchises to MS.
The way I'd solve this at SNY, is to buy Take Two. That alone is the only purchase they'd need, assuming MS doesn't later start acquiring big non Western devs/pubs.
Acti/Bliz had a 64B market cap, which is why MS paid somewhere between 64B-70B for them. You typically have to pay a bit of a premium over the market cap.
Take Two has a 17B market cap. SNY should be able to acquire them for $20B, but it would pretty much take everything they could throw at the deal to make it happen.
It would be worth it for GTA alone. The income, but more importantly, the mind share. GTA 6 (timed) exclusivity on PS5 would squash everything MS has done so far.
MS could go out and buy EA and UBI after this and it wouldn't change the market mind share. SNY would have it locked down for this gen.
SNY wouldn't even have to make it totally exclusive. Just timed exclusive to some degree, and a few free in game multiplayer perks for buying it on PS. Problem solved.
Imagine GTA 6, PSVR first person exclusivity.
PS1 - ! - We must build a console that can alert our enemies.
PS2 - @- We must build a console that offers online living room gaming.
PS3 - #- We must build a console that’s powerful, social, costs and does everything.
PS4 - $- We must build a console that’s affordable, charges for services, and pumps out exclusives.
PRO -%-We must build a console that's VR ready, checkerboard upscales, and sells but a fraction of the money printer.
PS5 - ^ -We must build a console that’s a generational cross product, with RT lighting, and price hiking.
PRO -&- We must build a console that Super Res upscales and continues the cost increases.
