And they’re desperate to get into the Japanese market
They have clearly proven this is not true and the market isn't valuable as it was 20 years ago which even then wasn't in top form.
I also find the difference between MS and SONY studio acquisition threads to be quite odd. Almost every company has brought Studios.
If Sony didn't raise the amount they would pay Universal for ND, Universal would have kept ND and Sony would have never gotten them. This also led to a relationship between Sony and Insomniac even though Insomniac wasn't a Sony studio for years.
Don't forget Psygnosis and Polyphony, the former was primarily a computer developer that was brought out by Sony, and the other was Sony buying some small studio who they changed the name of and added members to it for GT, There are many other examples of this as well, even NIntendo did similar actions multiple times.
What is funny is Microsoft historically had more original from scratch studios than Sony. It's only recent years that Microsoft has been increasingly going the acquisition route starting with the Kinect purchases in 2011.