Microsoft isn't just a publisher they own a platform and their job is to create reasons to entice buyers to purchase their platform. It's a job they've failed at. The chickens have come home to roost and now Nadella and Hood are pushing to expand to other platforms. That dilutes the uniqueness of their own platform and makes it less appealing.A publishers job is to fund games.
Sony stans like to come up with these romanticized ideas of what sony is doing vs microsoft, but in reality as publishers their Job is the same.
Whether it’s a first party game or a 3rd party game. Their job is take a game pitch from a dev and decide if they feel that game is worth the investment.
Splitting hairs over exact contract details is just stan shyt so you can say “sony good, Microsoft Bad”
The biggest difference between sony and microsoft in the past is they when sony decided to fund a game they would negotiate ownership of the IP or studio. Microsoft did not stipulate ownership in their contracts in the past. Now they’ve changed that strategy to more in line with what sony has always done and they’ve decided to buy the studio for games they want to fund.
Ultimately, like i said they are both just doing what a publisher is supposed to do
Microsoft has shown no knack for successfully guiding the studios they buy to creating major IPs that are valuable. Most of Sony's most valuable IPs came from studios they bought well after the purchase. Most of Microsoft's most valuable IPs were developed by companies before they purchased them or began development pre-Microsoft's influence.
It's like you want to pretend like Microsoft doesn't buy publishers and studios and mismanage them all the while bleeding talent. No doubt in my mind if Xbox was outselling PlayStation 3 to 1 they wouldn't bother putting games like Indiana Jones on PS5. It's happening because the userbase isn't there to support it on Xbox.
