I am very sad that ES6 and Starfield will never run on a Sony console. Just like when some Gimlet podcasts I liked went Spotify exclusive -- this kind of thing is a net negative for the world.

And you weren't aware of the potential risks of a closed ecosystem before?

It's not like you bought into an open ecosystem, but now they closed it off.

Would've been valid only if the quality of products and services pre-acquisition were actually good, and for Blizzard games at least it's been anything but good in the past few years. Gaming is a very end-user-focused experience and until their testimonies come in due time, your abstract market competition spiel is irrelevant to it.

IP laws already prohibit competition.

There is only one maker of Diablo, and no Torchlight is going to replace Diablo.

Games aren't going to get pulled from other platforms. New games may not come out on (insert-your-preffered-console), but they never were guaranteed to come out at all.

Thus consumers aren't loosing anything here. It doesn't even reduce competition.

I sometimes really question if I'm back on reddit while reading some of these replies...

You're in HN, talking about MS and acquisitions, telling them to learn to compete?

Am I on the right website or has my browser been hijacked?