Well the key difference in this case is that the top 10 video game industry acquisitions of all time (excl. MS x Activision) adds up to less than the value of this deal.
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) September 22, 2022
And that include Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax and Mojang + Activision's acquisition of King in that
Some fun facts:
The cost of Activision = $68,700,000,000
The cost of the top 16 acquisitions (excluding Activision) = $59,970,000,000
Two of these other acquisitions are also by Microsoft (Zenimax at $8,100,000,000 and Mojang at $2,500,000,000) Overall their 3 biggest acquisitions come out to $79.3 billion.
Sony meanwhile, their 3 biggest acquisitions (Bungie, Gaikai, Insomniac Games) comes out to $4.2 billion.
Microsoft has spent almost 20x as much as Sony had on gaming acquisitions.