It would probably look worse if Spencer and co. expected Sony to sing Kumbaya with them because of anything related to Activision. If MS releases all of their first-party content on PS while Sony continues to have exclusives, I think that is what would make them look like a simp. I don't really think MS looks bad by securing a lot of content for GP while maintaining the status quo.
My question though is how strong is the value proposition for GamePass to draw in enough new customers and long-term customers/subscribers, if a lot of the biggest content is still available in other ecosystems? There aren't a lot of film/television streaming equivalents to compare to, but it'd probably be like if Disney agreed to put The Simpsons on Netflix after acquiring Fox, or future Alien films for that matter onto other services, especially with release parity.
Could the case be argued that Disney+'s sub numbers would be weaker taking that path? Well there's no way we can say for sure, it'll only remain a hypothetical. But it's going to be pretty interesting to see how this all shakes out. IMO it's still too early for Microsoft to really rely on GamePass's value proposition as the main selling factor to lure in most customers to the service, but if their plans have shifted somewhat from pushing GamePass at all costs and towards generating maximum revenue and profits sooner, then business-wise keeping the status quo makes sense.
It's just a bit unfortunate this is going to inevitably reinforce a lot of perceptions that Xbox isn't "allowed" to have exclusive games (or to better say, exclusives people outside the ecosystem would genuinely care about) unless they're in-house from the ground-up, even when it takes literal years to get new studios up and running. Like they're being punished for having too much money or something, despite earning that money in a capitalist market that was designed to foster competition in the first place. Meanwhile I'm almost hoping Sony actually do acquire a massive publisher just to see if the same energy is kept in that case as well, because that's ultimately what I care about: people being consistent about their stances no matter the company.
When I see people jumping through hoops to slam one company for doing a thing, but jump through even more hoops to justify another company doing essentially the same type of stuff, it's beyond grating and phony.
