No, this acquisition wasn’t “to hurt Sony” at all, it’s just a purely commercial move to increase Xbox’s market share in the video game industry and generate more revenue.
It’s always mostly the “fans” who are dumb to each other. Mature companies don’t play childish games. At least not Phil Spencer. Sony rejects every offer, good or bad. And offering a 10-year guarantee on a title and availability on PS Plus is an incredibly generous offer.
And Microsoft is far from desperate: Phil Spencer said 5 years ago that the goal is to offer both its ecosystem and its games on as many platforms as possible, so that everyone, no matter what system they own, can interact with each other play and/or has access to that catalog of titles.
So it’s just in line with expectations and something they’ve been planning for a LONG time. It’s not suddenly a convulsive emergency leap to get out of these restrictions.
Also, it has long become clear that both the FTC and the EU would not have a leg to stand on if they were to take this to court, so they can only try alternative ways to counter it, so they will need to formulate a case first to file an official lawsuit to a judge, and both Microsoft and Activision lawyers have indicated that they look forward to a possible lawsuit with great confidence.
Why they don’t stand a chance with charging is explained quite clearly in this video:
https://youtu.be/jHmu2q9hYk4
It is therefore rather Sony that is desperate, and even rejects any outright offer by default. I bet even if Microsoft gets to 20 or 30 they’ll still refuse…
