Yeah, it's why I always gave Shawn Layden shit for saying he stopped making online MP games because he didnt want to compete with third party publishers. Well, you moron look at how that turned out.
Imagine if Zipper was given ten years to refine MAG. Epic turned a coop building game into a battle royale shooter in months. Zipper couldve been there day one. Imagine what Incognito wouldve done with a real budget for Warhawk with PS4 and especially PS5 specs. Insomniac started the whole PvE trend with their 8 player coop mode in Resistance 2. IIRC, Gears horde was only 4 players and didnt have the PvE elements of Resistance 2. They had 60 player online on the pS3 in 2008. KZ, TLOU and Uncharted MPs were very unique and had dedicated userbases that wouldve flourished on the PS4 after it got the CoD audience from the 360.
And yeah, I was all for MS buying Ninja Theory, Playground games and especially obsidian. It's insane that they passed on Crystal Dynamics and the Deus Ex Studio for just $300 million. But buying Bethesda doesnt give xbox owners anything new. They were always getting Starfield, Elder Scrolls, Fallout and CoD. It just takes away from PS users. Its no better than the Rise of Tomb Raider, FF7 and FF16 exclusivity. Just moneyhats. Nothing more. If they really wanted to put these games on gamepass, simply outbid sony for marketing rights and put the damn thing on gamepass. 25 million monthly users making them $250 million a month, 3 billion a year, and you cant afford to get 1-2 big AAA games a year? Forget 12 big AAA games a month. You cant afford one cod game a year?
Interesting point about CoD suffering under MS management. We just saw that Bethesda couldnt deliver their game despite MS backing. All those 24 studios and billions of dollars and they couldnt ship a game on time.