Eh, sort of. Sony for sure changed the playbook by putting its games on Steam (yet weirdly not EGS), and to some degree it had already done that when it did some mobile titles back in the day. It's no longer a company about a box and maybe also a handheld box; it's a company about its brands and services, where they find an audience for them.
...Still, there is a fight going on. Meta and Sony can only be pals where it makes sense to their own bottom line and the value of its user base. Meta can say, SURE, we'd love to exchange titles with Sony, wouldn't that be great for both of us, but of course they aren't expecting Sony will eagerly port over Horizon CotM just because it sounds like a fun idea that would just sell some more copies of the game. (Meta's brands are not as strong as Sony's, but they're keeping RE4 VR close after paying to have that made, though RE4 Remake will have VR support so that's even less a chip to deal; MoH Above and Beyond, similar case that external publisher EA could bring it elsewhere but it helps as a Quest exclusive right now.)
Meta getting the rights to Iron Man VR might have been a make-good with Sony to not tick off Marvel by saying no (they're done with the game anyway so it wasn't worth a fight.) Or it could have been grease to help get some of the Insomniac VR games out of Meta's hands (if they actually have rights beyond being the original publishers; supposedly Insomniac owns those games despite Oculus putting them out.) Or it could have been, as you say, a tactical decision to make friends in the VR space, since the competition in VR right now isn't other VR players, it's everything else not-VR that has to be overcome if VR is to succeed. It's not clear yet what the terms of the deal are, though, and we'll have to wait to see if there's any greater implications in this exchange of the license...