At this point in time its super hard for a new competitor. It would take a company like AMazon, Apple, Google with full backing financially to have a start up. unless they used an already existing brand.
Microsoft when they entered had the money and had the people with connections to PC Graphic designers/developers. So they courted a lot of PC developers since they were showing off Direct X 9 and the things you could do with it to many studios.
Who else has that connection in tech? Apple really is the only one comparable.
And I dont trust apple to make gamer like decisions for their software/Hardware.
Case in point their VR headset is Dead on arrival at $3500.
We need Xbox to push Playstastion. Issue is their direction will kill the industry.
No, we don't. Stop falling for this. Nintendo doesn't need ANYONE (apparently) to push them as a direct competitor, and they're doing better than ever (in most aspects). Why do people think PlayStation "needs" Xbox? What, the same way PlayStation "needed" Xbox for crossplay? Guess why MS pushed for crossplay so hard? Because their online community was dying off on Xbox, and they needed to leech off the more popular platform's online community for cross-pollination to prevent more from leaving the Xbox console ecosystem. This is after MS themselves rejected crossplay during the 360 era when Sony were the ones who wanted it.
PlayStation does not need Xbox, but PlayStation's existence is the sole motivating factor for Xbox wanting to make these big publisher acquisitions to "spend Sony out of business". So it's obvious Xbox is the one in need of the other, but only to the point where they can just squeeze them out and have no direct competitors left. As long as Xbox is still ran by Phil Spencer and his team in upper management, there is no "need" for Xbox to act as a driver for PlayStation to compete. If anything, Sony need to capitalize on their own brand and refocus into a more truly closed garden ecosystem, and take some notes from Nintendo.
They can easily hit Nintendo's gaming profit numbers while still growing revenue, leading with 3P support and making the kind of games they make. But they have to stop relinquishing so much to outside content ecosystems when it comes to gaming, and re-establish a wider range of IP types demographic-wise, like they had in the PS3 gen (which was getting pretty close to the sweet spot).
Does any of this mean I want Xbox to disappear? No. I want Xbox to do better, but with Phil and the current management, their idea of Xbox doing better, means architecting ways to make PlayStation do worst, if not kill PlayStation off altogether. That's a conflict of interest for me; I don't want Xbox to do better at PlayStation's expense.
Depending upon how this week goes, i wonder if we will look back in hindsight at Kotick's testimony praising sony and throwing gamepass under the bus as a "we shouldve known all along" epiphany? Its not lost on me how queit ABK was/still while MS was in the media complaining. Maybe ABK feels like, hey our stock has mostly recovered and we're about to get 3 billion plus diablo has been a success, we dont really need to be bought anymore?
I wouldnt be shocked if come friday we hear that ABK will walk away on the 18th or something. I could be completely wrong though.
It could make for an interesting turn of events where even if the FTC aren't granted the PI, the deal still fails because ABK decide it's in their best interests to pursue a non-acquisition strategy. Like you said, their stock has more or less recovered (whether they were overvalued before the drop is another topic). They don't need to be acquired by Microsoft (or anyone) if that's the case; Microsoft are the ones who are in need here.
Which is still wild to me because they already have Ninja Theory, Obsidian, Playground, inXile, Compulsion, and the entirety of Zenimax plus working relationships with Asobo, Crystal Dynamics, IO Interactive, Avalanche, and their original teams like Rare, Turn 10, Mojang, The Coalition and....okay well 343 is a zombie ATM but they're still there.
If that isn't enough for you to "compete" then maybe you just aren't good enough to "compete" in the first place.