Why is the Psygnosis publisher acquisition continuously downplayed like it didn't kickstart Sony's reliance on exclusives to sell consoles. It all started in the 90's with them. Before their acquisition, Psygnosis developed for every platform imaginable for almost a decade. PS1 dominated with Psygnosis as both a multiplat and PS exclusive game making machine, right along with JS as a Sony first party studio. With just these two studios combined, who was making a stand against Playstation? Saturn? Dreamcast?
By the mid to late 90's Psygnosis was kicking out exclusives at an amazing rate, developing for mostly Playstation before becoming a completely first party studio and then nearly defunct shortly thereafter.
Sony wrote the book on aggressive exclusive tactics meant to push other platforms out since the 90s. They adapted and capitalized, even on the back of mistakes by their rivals, and continued to press the advantage. I know a lot of people expect these companies to just roll over and die, but you're now seeing the extreme measures that a company the size of Microsoft is taking as a reaction to last generation's exclusive blitz. It's not like Microsoft made mistakes, the industry carried on, and they could just simply climb their way out. Sony did what it needed to do to put their foot on Microsoft's neck and it paid off for them period. Sony has likely cemented itself as market leader permanently.
MS' Bethesda acquisition finally put them on equal footing since their inception in terms of number of first party studios opposite Sony. Sony used both money and market leader position to maintain their foothold on that position and Microsoft is using the capital it gained as a company to offer lucrative acquisition deals studios and publishers. These aren't hostile takeovers, you still have to want to sell to be bought. A company might want to "buy up all the companies they can" but realistically, seems some companies might be even too big to be bought (Example: Activision). Now the only way Microsoft is seeing a way to fight back is to keep Sony from getting 3rd party exclusives, and to that you need to own these studios outright. Like it or not, that's business.
Microsoft didn't promise that they wanted to keep IPs they own open to all consumers, they are promising that they will be keeping these IPs open to their eco-system and that includes Xbox and PC, Day 1, for the price of a month's worth Gamepass. Even after acquiring Zenimax Microsoft still honored Sony timed exclusives. There are still Zenimax games that can be played on both Xbox and Playstation. Microsoft has said it wants to keep the biggest Acitivision game available because doing that makes it profitable (Like Minecraft, like Fallout, like ESO) and even wanted to sign binding contracts to make that a guarantee for a decade.
It is what it is and has been for a very long time.