Every purchase was based on numerous collaborations of projects. Where were these so called projects for xbox before they bought rare? Obsidian? Bethesda? Lion head? Lion head was indpendent for over a decade before being bought and really fable was the only game they made specifically for xbox. From my understanding that game was coming to PC originally, but Microsoft wanted it on xbox. Then bought them couple years later.
Semantics, and again, trying to make a business argument an ethical one when no ethics (human or civil) are being violated. If you read the rest of the post I mentioned of some of the longer-running collaborations between Microsoft and some of the studios they acquired, namely Zenimax/Bethesda.
And no, the game was "coming to PC" but it took Microsoft's funding to make it happen because Bethesda were cash-strapped in the early 2000s. That helped them get the funding they needed and also to set up Zenimax. Anyway, trying to qualify "oh this one's doing it more ethically" by quantity of numbered collaborations is dumb, because some of the Sony ones I mentioned were also either low in quantity or IP variety. Naughty Dog for instance, only did a single IP for Sony before being purchased. Some of the others mirror that with even less installments.
Back then Capcom was in financial troubles so they signed several exclusivity deals with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to get some cash. In the case of Sony, they did choose Street Fighter. Sony funded and outsourced the PS4 USFIV port, put money for the Capcom Pro Tour eSports and partially funded SFV in exchange on full console exclusivity for SFV series and 'next gen exclusivity of USFIV'.
According to Capcom, SFV development would have been delayed a couple of years because they didn''t have money to fund it. This is, development start would have started a couple of years later and its release would have been in 2018. Thanks to Sony's money they were able to start working on it and to release it earlier. Without Sony the game release would have been the same but 2 years later and multiplatform.
I'm aware of every single thing you just mentioned, but the point wasn't to ask on the specifics. It was me asking that poster if they had similar animosity towards Sony making that venture as they seem to have to Microsoft purchasing Zenimax, on the grounds that in both cases you are dealing with publishers and IP that have multiplatform status.
Because if Sony's funding Capcom for SFV development helped it get produced quicker (which it did; and to be perfectly honest, 2018 would've been the better time for it to come out because that's when the game first felt "complete" as a package), then the same can be said of Microsoft's purchase of Obsidian to help fund games they otherwise would not be able to make, and the same can be said for Zenimax. Hell, we had the group saying as such in the roundtable.
So, again, I have no problem that Sony helped fund SFV development and got console exclusivity as a result (or similarly what they did with Microsoft and Dead Rising 4). The issue is with people using the Zenimax purchase as a reinforcement for a false narrative that Microsoft has not cultivated any internal talent or grown studios post-acquisition, and the equally false narrative that Sony has always grown teams internally, hasn't purchased outside talent to make it 1P, didn't start the practice of timed exclusivity (tho on this one they may technically be correct because Nintendo actually started that with their strict licensing agreements on the Famicom/NES) or don't leverage the power of purchasing developers.
The only actual difference between the two (because yes, MS have mismanaged some studios mainly 343i but Sony also mismanaged studios like RAD and Evolution, Liverpool etc., and both have shut down studios as well) is that Sony hasn't purchased an actual publisher, but Microsoft purchased Zenimax mainly for their developers and technologies; them having a self-managed publishing arm is an added bonus.
Sony buying developers that already made games for their consoles is not the same as what MS is doing by purchasing publishers and developers that made games for everything.
Please stop likening the two.
You're basically making an argument on frivolous particularities as some implied ethical take. Back when Sony entered the industry no one else purchased exclusivity contracts for future game installments that already had prior entries on multiple competitor consoles, either, but it happened anyway. Why? Because Sony were competing in a free market where being able to leverage your resources (even if your opponents lack those resources) is favored as that is the benefit of capitalism.
I imagine there were plenty of Sega and Nintendo fans throwing similar temper tantrums at Sony back in the day on obscure message boards and chats for doing things otherwise 100% legal only they could really do due to their corporate structure and financial capacity, as we're seeing today from yourself and many others having temper tantrums over Microsoft playing to their own corporate structure and financial strengths in ways that are 100% legal.
Want to get mad at something over this? Get mad at capitalism and the legal system. But then you'd have to get equally mad at every corporate ever for the past 100 years, and that just exposes how dumb these temper tantrums are doesn't it?