Microsoft gives market share against PlayStation

[Machiavellian]

DonFerrari said:

Kyuu said:

MS would have to pay a whole lot more than Sony if they want to make similar deals. A lot more for a small reward. We've seen that with Shadow of the Tomb Raider and other examples (Which was what likely led MS to stop aggressively securing big exclusives. They paid a $100 million for a single year Tomb Raider exclusivity lol). Japanese publishers in particular would not take MS's money for a short term benefit that could risk the IP's strength. Not to mention Xbox marketing isn't great.

Sony aren't "buying their way to victory", as A) the majority of the few high profile exclusives they secured started caming out late in the PS4 generation, and B) all exclusives pale in comparison to their own bigger 1st party titles. Playstation's exclusives are mostly unpaid. Those which are paid still aren't nearly as big as Sony's own titles. On the other hand... Minecraft, CoD, WoW, and TES are several tiers above the level of Microsoft's older IP's.

I found it odd that neither Sony nor MS tried to bid for Square Enix western that was sold out. That would have been a cheap and easy purchase.

MS did not because they do not want anything to further conflict with the ABK deal, Sony did not because they just did not care for the studio.