I think they do blame themselves for not investing in their first party. They even made a 6 part documentary showcasing it, and brought Don Mattrick back for an interview.
They're clearly investing now.
If you want to talk about blaming Sony for getting better deals, they didn't blame them publicly. The actual history is that they tried to get 3rd party exclusives as well. We famously know the price tag of the Rise of Tomb Raider deal for just 1 year was supposedly $100 million. That's an astronomical price, when Insomniac sold their entire studio for $229 million. And we know MS didn't really see much of a benefit to their business from that Tomb Raider deal either. The level of outrage was almost as bad as we see now with Activision. People were flipping out that they'd have to wait 1 year, and I don't think the game sold that well.
What people are pointing out is that Sony can get 3rd party deals over and over for much cheaper than this since they only have to cover the lost revenue from a much smaller competitor if it's exclusive. MS would have to cover the lost revenue from the huge market leader, and then the game they get would still not sell that great - because they're much smaller. Repeat this over and over for 20 years and with a small amount of money, a dominant player can bleed out all their competitors while they gain very little.
MS tried this and knows it's a losing strategy. They didn't blame Sony, they moved to a sub model and acquisition strategy, which is far more logical and cost efficient in the end. And like you said, they are a trillion dollar company so no excuse to not invest and spend some of that money. They finally are.
Very well said.
Agree with everything except that its NOT a losing strategy.
Fact of the matter is that MS has been in this industry since the PS2. They have had 3 generations to get it right. And lets not forget they even leveled the playing feild with the 360. They had the momentum going into the XB1 gen, or rather before they announced the XB1. They have had 20 years to do exactly what sony has been doing. Building organic relationships, developing their first party, growing their user base...etc. They have had every opportunity sony has had.
lets not forget that MS originally had that COD marketing deal, they gave that up because they felt they had Halo and that sony getting it wouldn't do much for them anyway since xbox I've had the best MP service anyways.
If MSiswing to offer most of these publishers $300M just so their game will be on gamepass, there is absolutely nothing sony can do about it. And they would only have to do that for like 1 or two major games a year. like you think MS couldn't have outbid sony for Hogwarts and paid them $300M just so its on GP? Imagine what that would have done for GP.
With the kinda money MS has shown its ready to spend, almost $80B now.... can you imagine how many $200Mdeasthey could have secured or games to just also be on GP day 1...
MS own incompetence has put them in a position where the only way to compete now (and thats just because they are not patient enough to do it organically) is to buy out publishers in their entirety.
How anyone cant see how that is a problem is beyond me.