None of what you have said matters though. In terms of console install base, Microsoft is third and has been third, save for most of the 360 era, for twenty years. How that happened immaterial, it's a verifiable fact.
I mention this because - as someone, I think Shifty said - Microsoft seem to be fighting for public opinion. And that absolutely does not matter, because pubic opinion won't change regulators minds. It almost feels like Microsoft have already accepted defeat and and setting up a narrative should the deal not go though.
They tried to follow the template of Sony, however through brand loyalty and other factors, they were not successful in doing so. One singular instance of this was Tomb Raider exclusivity and the outcry it caused. Final Fantasy XVI is exclusive and I don't see too many articles crying about that.
This is an interesting take, I never felt that Microsoft were copying Sony's "template", but I would say that being late to a market and doing something similar is a strategy that is hard to pull off, e.g. Zune, Windows Phone.
I don't believe brand loyalty is an important as you do for several reasons. First, when Sony launched PlayStation they had zero brand presence in consoles and were going up against SEGA who has released generations of consoles and whose hardware was in every arcade on the planet. That didn't stop Sony destroying SEGA in sales. Of course Sony's strategy was to fully endorse more mature content to promote PlayStation both at kids and to young adults And Sony put PlayStations in places were young adults like bars and clubs. Brand loyalty didn't sell PS3s at launch and sales-wise the console was shunned for two years until the cost came down and decent games come out.
Second, when Sony launched PS3, nobody touched that overpriced brick with a barge pole whereas 360 was selling gangbusters.
PlayStation was popular because Sony fully endorsed mainstream mature content and pushed their console both at young adults as well as at kids and Sony got PlayStation where young adults were, like bars and clubs. The fact that it was a a good CD/music player also helped, likewise PS2 being a cheap DVD player. Regardless of any perceived brand loyalty, PS3 bombed until it was massively reduced in price and had a lot of goods games coming out, it sold poorly whilst 360 sold like gangbusters.
It's not Microsoft's fault Sony is trying to fight a paradigm shift from the business model of which they've had so much success.
Equally, Microsoft cannot endlessly consume massive independent publishers to feed their experimental business paradigm. It doesn't feel like GamePass is event that popular - granted Microsoft release less and less info as the years roll on - but the last figure I saw was there were
100m active Xbox Live subscriptions at the end of 2019, and as of January this year there were
25m Xbox GamePass subscribers. Allowing for some shrinkage/growth of the number of Xbox actually being used, it seems like only a small fraction of Xbox owners are interested in Game Pass.
So, if the only answer you can have is just big tech company = bad company, you really don't have a good one. That's the point to where Lina Khan and the FTC have arrived.
I think Microsoft are struggling because they present a narrative of
wanting to bring games to more gamers and wanting
fewer platform exclusives is at odds with what they actually did with Zenimax. Regulators look at what company's say, but they also look at what companies have actually done. Their decisions with Zenimax - Bethesda really - is Microsoft shooting itself in the foot. It is unfortunate that the only big games announced from what were Zenimax studios since the acquisition are Xbox exclusives. If only Phil Spencer had control over that...
