I understand where you are coming from. And I would feel the same about losing COD on Playstation if I were in your position. However, I very much disagree with your latter point. To say Sony has no future in gaming, unless they buy Take Two, is premature and hyperbolic, imo.
I appreciate your response. You said a lot of things that I want to respond to so I'm gonna break it down.
I understand that what I said comes off as dramatic. When things like this happen I always imagine the worst case scenario.
As far as I know, COD has been absent from the Nintendo Switch, and yet that has not stopped the Switch from being widely popular and successful. Is there no future in gaming for Nintendo?
Yes, losing COD on Playstation would be a huge blow to Sony, no question. If MS ends up buying Take Two as well, would that be an additional blow to Sony? Yes, of course. But if Sony can continue to play to its strength of releasing high-quality 1st party titles, then it should, at a minimum, be able survive in the gaming space just like Nintendo has.
True, the Playstation brand may no longer be the dominant console. But as long as there is a market and demand for their 1st party titles, then I don't see why there can't be some kind of future for Playstation.
Here is the thing about the Switch, and the Ps5. Nintendo's IPs are by far the most well known and successful IPs in video games of all time. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Smash, Pokemon, ALL of these are household names. And Nintendo has been able to be massively successful just off of their own IPs.
In a world where mS continues to buy literally all of the third party publishers, big or (relatively) small - Take Two, Ubisoft, Sega, Capcom, Konami, whoever else, then leaving Sony with nothing but their own first party studios, there is absolutely no way they will be able to replicate what Nintendo has.
List of best-selling video game franchises - Wikipedia
Sony's top selling video game franchise is Gran Turismo, and that does not even come close to Nintendo's lowest selling of their biggest video game IPs. Sure, Sony's IPs are a lot newer and fresher compared to Nintendo's dated ones, but that's Sony's choice to invest in newer ideas from their studios which is awesome and perfectly fine - but it does not carry the same weight as what Nintendo is doing. Nintendo can keep releasing new titles from the same IPs and they'll have an upwards trajectory of hardware and software sales. The Switch is on pace to outsell the Ps4.
Meanwhile, on Ps5 (and on Ps4 throughout its lifetime), all of Sony's best selling games were third party. Call of Duty is the best selling video game series on PlayStation, not any of Sony's own IPs. God of War 4 sold over 20 million copies, and it took about three years to reach that milestone. Call of Duty can do that within one year, and it's a series that has annual releases.
Nintendo doesn't need third party support to succeed, but Sony does. In fact, most of Sony's success has been through third party support.
And there are many paths for Sony to stay in the game besides buying Take Two. For the price of Take Two, Sony could probably buy up multiple Japanese studios which it already has a long history with, like Square, Capcom, and Konami. Just buying those three studios alone would help consolidate and strengthen Playstation's position as being the home of JRPGs and Fighters.
Those type of games already tend to be exclusive to Playstation by default, so the landscape wouldn't change much for Sony if they made those studios 1st party. What it would do is lock down exclusivity for those popular franchises like Final Fantasy and Street Fighter, and keep them out of the hands of MS or other companies like Tencent, Google, and Amazon.
Final Fantasy used to be exclusive to PlayStation up until FFS13. That was back during the seventh generation when Ps3 was losing one exclusive after another. The biggest blow for me was when Tekken 6 was announced to be multiplatform too.
Sony has timed exclusive deals with Square Enix, that's why FFS16 so far has only been announced for Ps5 and why only just last year FFS7R was released on PC. But that's all Sony ever does with third party publishers; timed exclusive deals. The exception is probably Street Fighter 5, and I don't think Capcom was happy with the sales of that game.
I'm pretty sure before Activision was acquired by mS, Sony had a deal with them for timed exclusive dlc on CoD for playstation before it ever arrived on Xbox or PC. So far, because all they do are these timed exclusivity deals, I don't think Sony will see it necessary to buy any of the Japanese publishers either.
I do agree with you though. I can see mS purchasing EA next. Maybe even Ubisoft. If there is one Western publisher Sony should acquire it's Take Two, and I think they should also acquire Sega, Square Enix, and Bandai Namco. That would even the playing field and make me feel a lot better; if both mS and Sony have about an even amount of publishers that were once third party. But once again, I don't think Sony will ever do that.
I mean, Sony does have a future. They are just going to have to accept having Game Pass on Sony devices. That is Microsofts end game here.
Sony is working on something called Spartacus and from what I heard, it is supposed to be some competition for Game Pass. But that to me is too little too late, seeing as how Game Pass already has 25 million subscribers. Spartacus cannot get off of the ground running when the other side already has a huge install base.
Also, wouldn't putting Game Pass on Ps5 also mean putting Halo on Ps5? Why would Microsoft ever agree to that? I would think that their end game is just to eliminate interest in Ps5 as interest in Series X just continues to grow alongside the attractive offer that is Game Pass.