I think at this point Sony needs to have a plan B(try to buy a big publisher to counter(EA or Take2) or buy small jap publishers like(capcom and square) besides that i don't how they will compete on the long term. Because if they deal goes on Microsoft will not gonna stop there.
Sony has been making their moves to beef up since 2019. That's when they, finally, bought Insomniac. Which was a big deal because they were one of the few large studios still independent. That gave them a studio that makes quality games at a high output along with VR experience.
Then in mid-2021 and all the way through early 2022, they made a flurry of purchases. Housemarque, Nixxes, Firesprite, Bluepoint, Valkyrie, Bungie, and Haven. Studios of various sizes, impact, and specialties. Most of which Sony lacked prior to purchase. Everything from arcade-like shooters, PC porting, multiplayer games, mobile-esque titles, first-person shooters, and live service experiences. Like Insomniac, Firesprite and Bungie were notable as being large, independent studios with anywhere from several hundred to nearly a thousand employees.
Then later in 2022 they grabbed Savage Game Studios which is a mobile developer aiming to create big mobile experiences. Recently there has been rumor and speculation, with good reason, that Sony bought Ballistic Moon. A new developer that may be making a survival horror game for Sony.
This is on top of Sony funding projects with third-parties like Firewalk and Deviation, who are both expected to be making first-person shooters for PlayStation. The latter of which has been speculated as having been on the verge of purchase by Sony. Then you have nearly all of their existing studios going on hiring sprees to increase output or make their games bigger.
Sony has directly stated their desire to expand and compete in areas they really haven't been, and live service games are a huge part of that drive. They certainly aren't sitting down on this. Ryan has made it clear that acquisitions will continue because that is the fastest way for Sony to achieve its goals. Though Hulst has tempered that by making it clear that any studios brought under him will have to be ones who fit their strategy well and match the culture.
The reality is, PlayStation will, at the very least, have CoD on it for a long while yet. Regulators have made it clear that is the bare minimum concession they will accept. That gives Sony ample time to come up with a CoD competitor. And that competitor doesn't even need to top CoD. It just needs to be like Battlefield use to be. A quality competitor that was able to steal some of CoD's thunder.
As far as where Microsoft goes after this, if the deal passes with no structural remedies, which at this point seems very unlikely but possible, you can be certain that future major acquisitions by Microsoft would be met with even more fierce pushback. Because at that point it will be undeniably obvious that Microsoft is not trying to simply compete. They're trying to outright buy the industry and race it to the bottom. But don't expect that to be the case. Microsoft is making this massive purchase, which is in no way chump change to them, because it was a unique opportunity that fell in their lap a year ago. It's basically a once-in-a-lifetime deal for the company.
Contrary to what any fanboy wants to believe, Microsoft as a whole is not eager to spend every last dime of their cash reserves buying companies they'll have to fight over every time for a division of their business that is minor compared to where they really make their money.
Thirty7ven
ToadMan
