I don’t like exclusivity deals and platform fragmentation either, I think it’s anti-consumer. But to be fair I don’t think the Microsoft deal is just about that.

Microsoft’s market cap is something like 23x that of Sony’s; the reason they are in 3rd place is entirely down to mismanagement. It’s pretty typical for Microsoft to find themselves in this position in many of the markets they have chosen to occupy over the decades, and so they instead use their deep pockets to buy their way to being market leaders. Microsoft have a long history of using acquisitions to buy out or block competitors, to the detriment of the market.

We saw what happened when Microsoft got a whiff of success in the 360 era. The Xbox One was anti-gamer and anti-consumer, and it didn’t happen by accident: that’s straight out of Microsoft’s playbook.

The increased competition might be nice in the short term, but it gives Microsoft an opportunity to disproportionately influence the gaming industry for decades into the future imo.