It's a bit of a myth. 

There are some companies that have more protection due to cultural and security reasons. 

But even there, there's very little preventing anyone from getting acquired. Even the highest protection tier, has gotten bought by non-Japanese companies.  Which none of the third party publishers are in that category. 

Right. I just wanted to make the first point to make the claim that they are being desperately disingenuous.

They don't care about Japan. They care about competing with Sony. They care about getting Japanese games so they can compete with Sony, and so they can limit what Sony can buy.

They basically want the days of Xbox 360 back. Where Tales of Vesperia comes to the US as Xbox only even though it released in PS in Japan.

What are you referring to ?

You guys think Microsoft can come in Japan and buy what they want ?

Microsoft own Tango Game Works a Japanese dev through their Bethesda acquisition.

Ah yes Tango, but I was thinking of something... bigger.

This is hilarious. Another senator complained around a week ago about FFXVI's exclusivity as if it's such a huge factor for Xbox in Japan.

The fact of the matter is Xbox gets the vast majority of relevant games, but they don't make any real difference because the brand is irrelevant in Japan (Sony didn't block Monster Hunter Rise Xbox marketing or Game Pass inclusion. Did it make a difference? No). If Sony is involved in blocking Micorsoft deals by offering better deals/policies to keep 3rd parties neutral or their games multiplatform, then power to them. Paying to ensure certain games stay multiplatform and blocking big acquisitions should be encouraged by the community, but alas, we live in different times and weirdos are cheering for MS to gobble up the entire world and for Sony to not be able to respond, mainly because their hardware dominates, never mind the actual reasons behind the hardware dominance, or the fact that hardware is just part of the equation. MS's software for instance will be on a different level from Sony once they get ABK (ABK makes similar profits to the entire Playstation business, but this isn't what MS want you to know. The same company that actively downplayed hardware sales is now hyperfocused on them).

It looks to me that Microsoft is pissed that Sony has an acquisition advantage in Japan and is likely to resort to it. Sony is not going to sit around and just watch Microsoft buy everything.

Here's what Sony has to do: Buy a couple Japanese publishers and offer a 3 year contract to support Xbox, and extend it to 10 years when Microsoft takes them to the court lol.

What we've seen here, is that some people are saying Sony needs to lock up Japanese studios, and some are saying they need to lock up western studios because the Japanese one's aren't going anywhere.

If you're MS and you actually want even more western devs, a strategic way to get Sony to focus less on acquiring western studios, and more on Japanese studios,  would be to do exactly this. Get the US government involved in Sony's dealings with Japan. Put the heat on PS. Push Sony to buy up those Japanese studios and spend the rest of the cash they have on hand, so MS is free to keep buying the western one's without worrying about Sony anymore.

It could be like you say though. If MS goes after another big western studio, they'll have just as difficult a time if not harder, but if they go after a much smaller, yet still large Japanese studio, the only problems they'll probably have are Sony and the Japanese government. Using the US government right now to try and smear Sony could be a first move in an eventual Japanese acquisition.

Whatever the move is exactly, MS isn't fkn around anymore and means serious business when they sic the US Government on you. Another US gaming company for that matter.

Fuck both of them. God, I miss when console wars were just about games than acquisitions. The industry is so fucking shit now. They (as in both) don't need to own any more studios. They have plenty.

Microsoft has had 22 years to to get it done in Japan. Xbox is not a success in Japan because Microsoft frankly doesn't know what they're doing in Japan and thinks that the same things they do here will work there. No amount of legislation, especially by foreign lawmakers, is going to make Xbox an attractive proposition in Japan.

And even in the United States, the audience for those games is overwhelmingly on Switch and PlayStation, not Xbox, and that's not going to change, either.

It would be an absolute waste for Microsoft to buy a Japanese developer, and it would put that developer on borrowed time until Microsoft closes it.

Well Microsoft's war chest is far from empty buy them all, should cost less than 70 billion anyway. Sony can't make deals with companies owned by MS and Tencent would still be bigger.