Isn’t it the other way around? Sony pushes hard for platform exclusivity and deals that work against Xbox and now Gamepass. It’s only natural that Microsoft will want to compete and get leverage.
Everyone has been doing this since forever. Halo was originally supposed to be released on MacOS (!!); then Microsoft bought up Bungie and made it an Xbox exclusive. Sony paid Call of Duty / Activision millions to get exclusive content (like maps, cosmetics, marketing, etc) on PlayStation; before Microsoft bought up Activision. Epic is infamous for their massive spend to gain exclusive distribution of PC games; in only one example, it was revealed that they paid ~$10M USD for one year of exclusive distribution of Control (the game's budget was only ~$36M USD, if that's any indication of how insane these deals are, but oftentimes they're structured in-part as a pre-payment of sales, not just a big free check).
All of this is shitty, but its like two pigs arguing who is more covered in mud.
Bungie used to make games for macOS. The predecessor Marathon Trilogy was originally released on macOS (and only Marathon 2 was ported to Windows). Halo was supposed to be originally released on macOS too, and then Microsoft bought the studio and turned it into an Xbox game, leaving all of the existing macOS userbase out in the cold.
Their purchase of Bungie also screwed up the IP rights to Oni. Wikipedia says that when Microsoft acquired Bungie, negotiations with Take-Two Interactive (which owned a share of Bungie) left Take-Two with the rights to Oni, and the sequel was eventually canceled. I don't have a citation on this but from what I understand, nobody is willing to touch Oni again (not even for an HD remake) because something about the IP rights is so messy that nobody wants to (or maybe nobody is even able to) untangle it. Which really sucks because it was a great game.
Right yeah, that's my mistake; it was showcased for release on both OSX and Windows at a MacWorld conference in the late 90s; Microsoft purchased Bungie in like 2000, and after that acquisition they added on an Xbox release.
Halo was an xbox exclusive for ages. I mean, not even available on Windows. They eventually released it for other platforms but it was years after and it felt dated and boring already.
Realistically, didn't most of this start when MS paid massive amounts for time exclusive DLC in the 360 era for some of the biggest games like Skyrim[0] or COD (5 years in a row)[1], or flat out exclusive content in GTA IV[2]? To me this seems like MS is crying that Sony stole their playbook and is doing it better. Granted either of them doing it is bad for consumers in general.
No, Sony has always had exclusive agreements with certain studios properties (and then purchased those studios later on) going back to the late 90s, before Microsoft ever entered the console market.
This sort of behaviour was well established in the industry.
