Without GOTY level games you get 3rd party games, and can you remind me of the GOTY games on Xbox to make this talk even relevant?
This is dumb. You get 3rd-party games whether you have those or not. Sony got a lot of 3rd party support stepping into the industry PRECISELY because they didn't have any of these "GOTY" 1st party games you're alluding to. No one was buying PS1s for Motor Toon or that Japan-only anime FPS they did, or even games like Parappa. People weren't buying PS2s for Dark Cloud and Fantavision, either, I can tell you that much.
Games like Crash Bandicoot may've driven attention to their platform on the 1st-party front, but they came almost two years after the system's debut. Same goes for games like GT3 (I am factoring the Japanese release dates into account here as well). You can't make reductionist arguments for one side without being willing to acknowledge that, historically, it's kind of been the same way for another.
Lastly, you don't need "GOTY" level games to have a good game, or even a great/fantastic game. Does it help with marketing clout? Of course. But we also know that sometimes GOTY contenders are more the equivalent of Oscar Bait™ films, i.e games that aren't popular with the vast majority or in fact might have contention with them. We'll see a lot of that this year with TLOU2.
If it's a licensed game, such as FIFA, getting EA's signature on an exclusivity contract is only half the battle, they would need FIFA to sign off on it too.
I would be shocked but not surprised if it did happen though, FIFA have never been shy where making a tidy profit from exclusivity deals are concerned.
I dunno how well getting FIFA games exclusively would play out for Sony in terms of legality, let alone the kind of backlash it would generate. EA was MASSACRED back in the day for getting the NFL license exclusively for a good bit of time. I would like to think Sony would get a similar reaction by trying to tie down an entire sporting franchise (and really, the only legit soccer series still around) exclusively to their platform. Even worst if EA were to somehow tie down exclusivity of the FIFA license.
If those variables were to somehow converge into reality, and there was no backlash but in fact praise, at that point I think it'd be fair to say a large segment of gamers are hypocritical brand cultists. You couldn't not lay
some of that blame at Sony's doorstep by that point. FWIW I would expect the same kind of reaction if Microsoft tried something similar, but they have less apologists so the correct reaction would actually be easier to bring about.
EDIT: Turns out EA
DOES have exclusive rights to official FIFA games, at least until 2022. And they will probably renew that contract. So yeah, anyone who wants to try locking games like FIFA exclusively to their platform better tread that ground
extremely carefully.