Despite the somewhat confusing title, this is an analysis of the merger trial, and how it could continue. Definitely worth the read, it pulls back the curtain on what happens when two giant corporations are trying to fuse.
“The idea is to create a moat that nobody else can attack.” - Microsoft exec Matt Booty
Microsoft is a billion dollar company, how are the the underdog when the have more than enough money to, oh I don’t know, make sure they don’t fuck-up their first party titles?
In the console market they are the underdog because their console has significantly less sales both in terms of units and game sales
How does that make it fine for Microsoft to buy two of the largest/ most prominent publishers in the industry and make their games exclusive? If their console and game sales are low maybe they should make games people want to play? Maybe they could have done to their first party titles what Sony did to theirs? Maybe they shouldn’t have tried to force drm, kinect, TV, and always online onto their customers and charge more than the competition on top of that? Maybe they shouldn’t market their console as the world most powerful console and then have no games to show off it’s capabilities?
Like I already said earlier, it would be better if no company was allowed to pay games publishers to block out publishing on their competitor consoles but Sony have already been using this dirty tactic for years.
MS said they are buying Activision Blizzard so Sony cannot block games from being released on their platform once again.
So to directly answer your question it is “ok” because it is a defence strategy to prevent Sony blocking them out of games. It is no worse than what Sony already do and at this point if they don’t use strategies like this then their platform risks fading into obscurity leaving Sony with a monopoly which is bad for consumers.