Imagine the regulators saying Sony can't buy Square Enix (5 billion) but Microsoft can buys ABK (73 billion).

The added quantity isn't detracting from the quality of the higher scored titles. Would you rather have Stellar Blade cancelled knowing it'd score in the low 80's or mid 70's on Metacritic thereby potentially lowering Sony's score as a publisher?

As long as any publisher invests in a larger number of projects, games scoring 80 or lower would be an inevitability, the score is bound to go down with higher quantities because not every studio is guaranteed to make great games. Sony investing in studios releasing not-so-great games isn't taking away from their reputable studios' work. Expansion risks have to be taken or else it'll slow down their growth.

And from my experience, quite a few games I played scoring 80 or below on Metacritic/GameRankings were great! There are hundreds if not thousands of underrated games out there.

Buying SE would certainly catch Sony up a bit as far as owning the highest selling franchises.  Despite being in the industry a lot longer Sony owns two franchises (Grand Turismo and God of War) in the top 50 selling video game franchises of all time.  Microsoft is about to own 7 (Call of Duty, Minecraft, Halo, Bejeweled, Diablo, Elder Scrolls, Crash Bandicoot) with Fallout and Gears of War being just outside the top 50 and Doom despite not being on the the top list being one of the most important games in video game history.  Both Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are in the top 50 selling list.  Series like Uncharted, Last of Us, and Insomniacs's Spiderman can one day get on the list if those series continue, and Destiny is surprising just outside the top 50 sold list.  I really don't think they buy SE, I don't think they need to, but Capcom would make a lot of sense.

Do you know what is Capcom's price ?

Please get your votes in here for Most Wanted April edition

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/247216/most-wanted-april/1/

Their market value today is 7.6B so it depends on the premium % they would accept on top of that. Between 10 and 11B would be my own personal guess. Far outside of Sony's left over budget for acquisitions this year that's for sure. 

Thank you !

But as said before, they can go over that number if they feel they have to.

I think a lot of this is uncharted territory for the games industry.  

Sony shouldn't be impacted by the Activision Blizzard acquisition this console generation, and depending on the marketing deals, Call of Duty might not even be on GamePass until a few years from now at the very least.

The question that remains is whether or not that period is enough time for Sony to prepare against the possibility (or shall I say inevitably) that Call of Duty is taken off PlayStation platforms. I've voiced this many times on this forum, but I believe that is entirely possible, if Sony is willing to spend 10B - 20B+ for their gaming division. While Sony can't outspend Microsoft, they can still make major strategic acquisitions that strengthen their platform and content library, to the point where if Microsoft were to pull Call of Duty permanently, they could damage its popularity (although it would still be one of the most popular games).

That's before variables like Sony's transmedia push, which could further elevate the likes of popular games like Gran Turismo, Destiny & Ghost of Tsushima, or the potential that one of their multiplayer projects hits big. For as much weight as Call of Duty holds, that didn't stop the likes of Fortnite, Destiny, Apex Legends, Rocket League, PubG, Genshin Impact, etc, from being insanely successful. 

That's true, if the biggest 3rd party can be acquired then anything and everything else is now possible. In the next 5 to 10 years the gaming industry can look completely different.