I have no problem with Sony buying devs (nor it matters that much to me, because founding from second party or first party is the same).
I do have a problem if Sony strategy would be instead of create was to take away from others.
I prefer Sony founding stuff like Rise of Ronin, I would have a problem if they bought CDPR just to remove The Witcher from Xbox, so the console warriors make a list to brag about it.
And yes, if Sony strategy is to buy something like Square just to remove games like Dragon Quest from Nintendo, and all the other smaller games that have a audience on Switch, I will have a huge problem with it.
If their strategy is to expand to South Korea and China, and bring new creators and new games, than I will give them massive credit for it.
So, I get what you're saying, but here's the thing; I
highly doubt any strategy where Sony acquires Square-Enix, would actually involve removing Square-Enix games from Nintendo systems. Mainly, because the SE games on Nintendo systems are more of their budget-like offerings, AA-scale games. What does Sony gain by making Octopath exclusive to PlayStation?
OTOH, there ARE IP that they could bring back through acquiring SE, that could be PS-exclusive and justifiably so, because they have no presence on Nintendo platforms. IP like Parasite Eve and Einhander immediately come to mind. It would be case-by-case, and unlike Microsoft when it comes to new releases, Sony actually have demonstrated they're willing to bring new games to multiple systems post-acquisition. That's what they're doing with Marathon, it's what they did even back in the day with Destruction Derby and Wipeout.
Strategically the only platform that would see SE games likely removed or reduced is Xbox, but that's something Microsoft invited upon themselves by wholesale making all future Zenimax releases Xbox console-exclusive. Which BTW, means even the Switch isn't getting those games, when it probably would've been the perfect system for them i.e HiFi Rush. The fact is, Sony have to do something WRT a major publisher acquisition or two, to secure historically strong 3P partners, and have content to leverage against Microsoft.
Because, that's the natural response Microsoft has now invited with their insanely aggressive publisher acquisition strategy. You've read the emails, you know what they want to do to Sony (and Nintendo) and they have shown they have no problem bleeding money in gaming for decades to simply whittle away smaller competitors until they can be eliminated or acquired. Sony are not the ones you should be concerned about with gaming M&As here, honestly, and there's enough historical evidence to prove it.
And I'm sure Sony is going to do something, because even the CEO aluded to it, and Jim is probably someone who prefers organic grown (and he is right), and we all going to lose for it.
You can have organic growth even through M&As, you just need to have the right leadership. Meaning that leadership needs to be creative and have critical skills in that area.
The problem with Microsoft Gaming is that its leadership is horrible when it comes to being creatively minded. Like right now they are talking about bringing Guitar Hero back which would be nice, but I also know that's because it's a very easy IP to turn into a GaaS live-service model with big monetization options, and that's the
real reason they're talking about bringing it back. Seeing how that push has negatively affected IP such as Halo, there's a strong chance they'll screw up Guitar Hero too.
Only relying on organic growth (i.e making studios internally from ground-up) would be the ideal solution for Sony if a direct competitor wasn't trying to squeeze them out of the market by cutting them off from 3P partners through acquisitions. For Microsoft, this strategy is really about choking competitors like Sony off from having independent partnerships and business operations with 3P publishers and their studios. If they do that, they gain a ton of IP and resources to utilize in pressuring Sony to lopsided terms for once-3P content that is now MS content. It also makes those 3P more entrenched in MS's backend development system, and Microsoft now act as the middleman in all instances of business with content from that 3P going forward.
For Microsoft it's about absolute control of the content and distribution, marketing, association, and using that to push competitors out. And they're doing it not on the merits of what their gaming division's earned, but other, much larger, non-gaming parts of the company. You can decide to stop playing on PlayStation all you want in the chance Sony acquires another publisher, but Nintendo won't be a haven forever. Microsoft want to buy them someday, too, and they've already got various publications (whether directly or indirectly) conditioning the prospects of that to the public in a more "pro-consumer" language.
As weird as it sounds, Sony acquiring a major publisher or two could indirectly benefit Nintendo, and likely more so than Microsoft acquiring Zenimax or ABK have (or will).
